TEXT:
My fingers travel from
Head to chest
Shoulder to shoulder
For the 10,000 deaths that happen daily
400 every hour
7 every minute
while the whole world watched
The sun never stops gleaming on the pearl of Africa.
And though she kisses the continent awake with each dawning,
there is something
Different about this April.
This april
Something about the way her rays boldly blasting through satin curtains,
declaring her the fairest of them all
April has never been this beautiful.
Then comes the memories,
Of gaudy, bloodstained diamonds dangling like lynched bodies from the ears of rich, white women
As they place freshly picked daisies in the ponytails of their daughters
Believing that their sweet radiance will save them from karma.
Its sometime in April
Sometime in April when morning’s glory greets them at their doorsteps
And isn’t bother by the season’s rain
Its sometime in April
But this April was different
Like little girls who no longer sat by the river and waited for their chance to dance with Nile.
Instead their fingers frequently traveled
From head to chest
Shoulder to shoulder
Observing the 10,000 deaths that happened daily
400 every hour
7 every minute
while the whole world watched.
Blinded by the sun, that had stopped gleaming on the pearl of Africa.
Dance steps clinched feet to resemble Hutu chants
Pawa, Pawa
Pawa Pawa,
Burning soles fell hard on dusty roads
Legs sprinted away from the scent of soul’s burning in the hearts of villages
Red, yellow, and green strips left to mirror Hitler’s swastika 15 years later
And the thick stench of death still intrudes upon the senses
Caressing the morning’s air
This is for Rwanda
Gutted and filleted like a fish to feed the corporate greed
Of those who want what Africa has, without asking for it
This is for every carcass still left rotting in Murambi
For the mamas in hastily tied lappas,
With emptiness in their bellies, clinging babies on their backs,
While trying to race with the bullets of men who nurse AKS in their palms
For the children forced to protect other children against faces familiar enough to be family,
For those who turned down the audio on their video, as soon as they saw the faces were black. This is for Bill Clinton, who sat home playing his saxophone to the tune of
10,000 deaths per day
400 every hour
7 every minute
While the whole world watched.
This is for the men gone mad,
For the masquerade of them who were force to forget that behind their Hutu masks originally lied a Tutsi
Men who kicked their ancestors to the curb, so they could trash the vaginas
Of African women with impunity, and stomp black babies ridiculously,
While pale puppeteers laugh hideously,
At the holocaust they designed, deliberately.
15 years later and the everlasting flame still burns for you
Never calling you the unknown because I know who you were
We remember you
We remember them
the 10,000 who died dailly
400 every hour
7 every minute
While the whole world watched
Until they grew bored and changed the channel.
VIDEO:
