Isn't It Strange?                                                                                 

                                          By Akoli Penoukou

You may pretend that my existence doesn’t count

And ignore or denigrate me in your powerful media;

You may mow me down like grass  

But with my perennial roots, I’ll always sprout.

During our first meeting you bartered junk for fortune   

Still that did not suffice to quench your avariciousness:

You deported me to work the New Land’s treasures

In harrowing conditions; yet like rock I survived.

Four long centuries of affliction left you still rapacious:

My land you snatched and its manna you pounced upon

Yet to the front you bundled me to wrench yours.

You think the Maker moulded for you me and my milk?

Now I’m striving to sculpture my own tomorrow

But your covetous spirit renders the task Sisyphean. 

I wonder why you have a taste so insatiable            

And a heart so pharaonically stony.

Today, just like yesterday and the days before

You’re busy scheming to make me trip and fall

But this time around sure I’ll stand steadfast                                        

‘Cause no more would I make a bed out of where I fall.

Tell me, does my rising tide threaten your shores?

Why should you lose your sleep because of me?

‘Cause despite the depth you’d thrust me into

My resilient nature is helping me bounce back?

You even screech and recoil when I step in your land

Forgetting I am in yours because you were in mine;

I am here because you draw all the oxygen from there                             

Where do you want me to go better to breathe?

Six centuries of history should have left me revengeful        

But isn’t it strange, even incomprehensible

That it’s you who hate and bear grudges 

While it’s I who rather forgive and love?

 *   *   *   *   *

Hymn of the Lazy

                   By Akoli Penoukou

Bad, worse, worst

may I always rest

until my bad is worse

and my worse worst.

*   *   *   *   *

I Walk Alone

                        By Akoli Penoukou 

I walk alone

With no mate by my side

Through the wilderness of life

I walk alone

With no parents through life

To guide me.

I walk alone

With not the saviour’s saving grace

To inherit the mansion he prepared.

I walk alone

With not a lover to whisper

Sweet things in my ear.

I walk alone

With not the comfort of a home

To return weary to.

I walk alone

With not even the guide of music

To lift my flagging spirit high.

I walk alone

With not even a liquid companion

To cool my covering of dust.

I walk alone

With not even an enemy

To still my restless soul!

I walk alone

With not even the sheer pleasure of books

To drown my sorrows in

I walk alone

With not a living soul in sight

To give me a sense of belonging.

I walk alone

With no forward or backward path

To guide me to some place, any place.

I walk alone

With not even the leveller of all

*   *   *   *   *

So We Will Never Meet

                                       By Akoli Penoukou 

So we will never meet, me to quench

My thirst in your lexical oasis?

Oh harsh world, that makes a man so warm

And snuffs him out with cold cruelty!

Walter Rodney boldly for the Truth stood

Which shall set me-and-us free.

Alas, they dried up that spring

Before I could drink of its refreshing waters.

Oh, my poor soul wearies so

To be denied its bread of life.

Ah! To know that we were made to love

And yet part forever in such a distress!

My weak heart mourns so;

An ocean of sorrow washes over me;

Yet can I smirk a crack, only a crack,

For the potent legacy you bequeathed us.

*   *   *   *   *

Who Can Throw the First Stone?

                                                  By Akoli Penoukou 

Offspring of Africans traded into slavery

vent spleen on Africans left behind

for cashing the price of their departure,

accusation which creates unhealthy animosity.

But who can throw the first stone?

Slavery lasted well over 400 years.

If Africans auctioned each other

it couldn’t be everybody who sold everybody

hence innocent hands could be left behind.

If Africans auctioned each other

which slave-descendant can swear

except those carted off in the earlier shipments

that his ancestor too did not merchandise anybody

before being himself sold off?

Before the African left these shores

he was the African-left-behind’s ancestor;

When the captured African landed over there

he became the slave-descendant’s ancestor.

My ancestor who became your ancestor is our ancestor

Shouldn’t we walk along this bridge to meet each other

instead of hurling a sterile accusation

which could backfire?

If the dead could feel

how would an African ancestor who never sold anybody feel

if accused of treason by a slave-descendant whose ancestor maybe sold?

Africans did not open European eyes to slave trading

that ignominious trade was imposed upon Africans

by European interests in America.

That Africans condoned it was highly treasonable 

But let’s not look for scapegoats.

All said and done, the African, gone or left-behind,

Who can swear his ancestors hands were clean

should throw the first stone.

*   *   *   *   *

A Brand New Millennium!

                                   By Akoli Penoukou

The year 2000,

A brand new millennium

Began life at midnight of December 31, 1999

Filing away a bitter-sweet century

A century brightened by

Unprecedented progress in

techniques,

medicine,

information technology,

and in affluence

But also darkened by

never-attained levels of

war,

diseases,

pollution

and of poverty.

What then spurred humanity on

The new millennium with such fanfare to embrace?

Hope of an era of change?

What makes anyone believe

that

in this new millennium

progress will overwhelm the regression ?

Despite the devastating effects of two “World” Wars

and numerous civil and inter-national wars

Man has not learnt the lesson

His swords into ploughshares to beat.

The fertile grounds of violence in our midst:

ethnic,

tribal,

religious,

political,

geographical,

and economic hegemonies

show no signs of ebbing

but alas are being exacerbated.

The roots of war:

covetousness,

the thirst for supremacy,

the stockpiling of arms,

the enhanced training and the increasing numbers of armies

know no low tide.

Are we therefore not promised

war and more rumours of war

with its corollaries of deaths and destruction

in the brand new millennium ?

Strides in medicine have been astounding

The pharmaceuticals have not sat on the side walls

Knowledge in hygiene has leaped

Yet man has not tamed diseases:

Typhoid fever, malaria, tuberculosis,

cholera, hepatitis, meningitis,

hypertension, yellow fever, schistosomiasis,

dengue fever, diabetes and others

continue to kill in no mean numbers.

As if that was child’s play

AIDS has stepped in

Confounding scientists

And wiping off millions.

In the wake of

Targeted medical research,

Sky-rocketing prices of medicines,

health maintenance for all in the year 2000 being a hoax

the cost of medical care becoming a distant star

Populations outstripping the numbers of doctors

Are we therefore not to expect

More diseases and more disease-induced deaths

In the brand new millennium?

In spite of vast disruptions in the eco-system

And especially global warming caused by holes in the ozone layer

Man continues to behave as if suicide was an ideal

And goes on destroying his heritage.

The foundations of pollution and environmental hazards:

The nuclear industry,

fossil fuel burning in industry,

strip-mining,

emission of noxious fumes by industry,

discharge of  noxious effluents by industry,

excessive use of  chemical fertilizers in agriculture,

over-intensive use of pesticides in agriculture,

intensive use of chlorofluorocarbons,

the disposal of toxic waste,

massive cutting of trees, especially in rain forests,

will be intensified

as developing and emerging economies strive to catch up

as developed economies sustain or accelerate their rhythm

and as competition builds up

between the two.

Are we therefore not to anticipate

More pollution and more environmental degradation

In the brand new millennium?

Despite increasing affluence of the North

And never-imagined economic gains in the South

Many more people than before

Cannot satisfy their most elementary needs.

The key indicators of poverty:

hunger,

malnutrition,

underemployment, unemployment and never employment,

squalor,

shanty towns,

are not disappearing

but rather multiplying at the speed of germs.

The vectors of poverty on the other hand:

greed,

covetousness,

selfishness,

ignorance,

lack of education and skills

and bribery and corruption

are not

frowned upon

but given

pats on the back.

Are we then not to see

Increasingly impoverished billions

In the brand new millennium ?

Considering the magnitude of these problems

And the indifference of the powerful

And the helplessness of the weak

What chances are there

That the brand new millennium

Will put smiles on the haggard faces?

Didn’t all of us court illusion and closed our eyes

to the painful realities of

war,

disease,

pollution,

and poverty ?

And sang

and danced

and clapped our hands

and shouted ourselves hoarse

instead of

weeping

and gnashing our teeth

and wringing our hands

and keeping the silence of the dead

for a brand new millennium doubtlessly full of woes?

 *   *   *   *   *

The Tether Will Suffer the Wear and the Tear

                                         By Akoli Penoukou

Tether  which inhibited us in barter

Tether  which revoked our God-image

Tether  which banished our patriotic rights

Tether  which hindered our exodus

                       Tether of delusion

                       Tether of genocide

             tightening noose of a tether

             suffocating noose of a tether

             neck-breaking noose of a tether

             life-quenching noose of a tether

                       like a hangman’s

tether-noose which took away our voice

             tether tightened by mammoth hands

             mammoth hands powered by hearts of stone

             hearts of stone activated by robot minds

but each time comes the wear and the tear

the wear

and

the tear

the tether-noose which limits and suffocates us

will again suffer the wear and the tear

the knots will slacken like a landslide

the noose will become a toothless tiger

the noose of the enemy will inevitably wear out

and we can continue our march towards light.

 *   *   *   *   *

Those Who Plundered Us

                                    By Akoli Penoukou

Those who plundered us

Live in big walled houses

Drive around in fat glistening cars

Wear neat custom-made clothes

Have rich arrogant nations:

At our homes we toil for them

On their lands we still labour.

Once upon a time

They came with a message so good

And a smile so sweet

But behind the message and the smile

Lurked our damnation.

They took our lands by force

Raped the resources

Plundered the people and their humanity

Carted away our relatives

Stained our culture

And brainwashed us:

We became servants in our homes

Living under colonialism;

Second-class citizens they made us

Under racist and apartheid regimes.

Those who reduced us to nothing

Are arrogant people.

They bluff:—

You were primitive when we came

We’ve given you civilization, education

And taught you the value of resources

We’ve tilled the land which lay fallow

We brought you out of the darkness.

Yes, we were bushmen—

In our backwardness we built

The baffling gigantic walls of Zimbabwe

The ancient university of Timbuktu

The mysterious pyramids of Egypt, et cetera

The ancient Empires

Of Songhai, Ghana, Egypt, Zimbabwe.

In our blindness

We carved the wooden sculptures,

Moulded the terracotta, worked the bronze and iron

And fashioned the golden artefacts

Which, today, decorate your museums and make you money.

Those who plundered us were,

And still are braggarts,

                                    liars,

                                                egoists,

greedy men,

                        hypocrites.

Those who plundered us

Are evil men—

They use us as guinea pigs for dangerous drugs tests

They poison the minds of our people

They rape the land

They don’t want to see us prosper

They sow confusion in our midst

They don’t share good things with us

They wish we could be exterminated.

(Didn’t one say: Africa would be a beautiful continent without Africans?!)

those who plundered us

will reap what they have sown.

*   *   *   *   *

On Learning of Walter Rodney's Death

By Akoli Penoukou

Dead? He? Oh, but he is not immortal!

Why did the Moulder mortalize you, Rodney?

Oh, so weak at heart did I feel;

Tears clouded my vision, rolled down;

Silent incredulity engulfed my frame

The confounding, pathos news to learn.

Shame unto you truth-haters

You shall swallow your bitter pill someday!

            How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Once did catch my lexical-hunger

A few pages gleaned for lack of time:

What an oasis for a parched throat!

What joy fluttered in my famished heart!

There, there, the camouflaged truth unbarred!

            What hands fashioned your brain?

What star led your knowledge to such a revelation?

Shattering race-biased history of black humiliation

Substituting filth with sanity; alas; truth is bitter!

How can the liars bear to see the light

Dispel the darkness they gloat in?

To see their distortions and fabrications unmasked?

Oh how nude and nervous you rendered them!

Your challenge to chauvinist our pride restored

Alas! Rodney, you had dug your grave.

            Haters of the up-coming Black restoration

Men ridiculed by your scientific analysis

Blockers of the road you constructed for us

Oh Black beacon!

Made you travel the road of your Brothers

(Garvey, Malcolm X, Luther King, Nkrumah, Cabral …)

Another prophetic voice anxious to still

Your hands and brains to freeze.

            Oh, how disappointed they are!

            Your departure is a blow to all civilized souls

But your legacy and courage immortalized you

And the unkind bomb martyred you.

            Your place among tomorrow’s mankind is high

When history, your weapon, is overhauled

And purged of distortion and fabrication, clutter.

            By your assassination is our zest fired up;

You bequeathed a weapon powerful

To spur on the dark and all downtrodden.

            They can only unlimber the tree and not uproot it

But surely the tree will germinate again

Spreading out its foliage

To shelter broken souls, above and below.

*   *   *   *   *