SUDAN: Purple Eye By Kola Boof

Books by Kola Boof

Nile River Woman (Poems, Feb. 10, 2004) / Long Train to the Redeeming Sin-Stories About African Women (April 6, 2004)

Flesh and the Devil: A Novel (May 11, 2004) / Diary of a Lost Girl (2007)

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SUDAN: Purple Eye

By Kola Boof

I lose my breathe and my heart
tightens; my blood
hard as chestnuts

For the Blue Black faces of the slaves
For the Arab hate-the brown and yellow
hate
that demands world silence

I cry for my own worth—thrown away
like sand from my Egyptian grandmother's
hand

demon night of the horse…quickened blood
Jihad from crackling screams

I pray for cleanliness in Sudan

The cleanliness of our goddess…Sudan
O Blue Black angel woman
who gave birth to our land
mother goddamn.
Let us pray for Sudan.

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Whenever I remember the night of August 21st, 2002…and once again see the faces of the three Arab-Islamic boys who attempted to murder me…it makes me know that my work is right, and that my life is not in vein. For I have always believed that the reason that women give birth (not just to children, but to anything) is because that is the only way in which the world can be changed. www.kolaboof.com/