Beautiful Africa

Beautiful Africa, where have you gone?
Oh mother of freedom, no more shall I break.
I long for the loving warmth of a
Yellow, sub-Saharan sky.
The only heat I feel is the fiery hot
Sting of my prison.
Oh subtle shades of Earth,
Reveal to me the secrets of salvation,
Only in my dreams.
My graceful beads of bone, engraved with pride,
Your creases are dark and deep, forged by heritage.
The traditions of kings.
The New World has etched another story in my face.
Oh charcoal stones dispersed among
The seasoned plains of amber and soft green brush,
Do you lament my absence?
My salty beads of sweat and blood—such quiet drips
Of labor, set wicked fire to my eternal wounds.
My home knows not my current woes.
Oh River run dry. Sustain me no more.
Your waters reflect no delivering spirits here.
Beautiful Africa, where have you gone?

Sonnet III

Black waters run to see the freedom sea
Before a tinsel sky in lunar times
As emerald grasses roll among the lea
A hidden neighbor screams a silent cry

Deliverance, eternal wars not won
The Serengeti’s tired and weak gazelle
A child armed with trepidation’s gun
His timid tears douse not the fires of Hell

For some salvation never tastes so gray
Untimely to release their pending woes
And forth from light they will forever stray
Into the cradled banks where darkness flows

The dumbly passive world will not atone
So children find your prayers and take them home

Sonnet II

How young what faces shake my soul so deep,
With crescent eyes bent under from the sun,
Like those so blinded from the world’s unrest,
Just waiting idly by for Kingdom Come.

Our spirits plagued with growing greed and pride,
We plant our evil seeds in foreign soil.
In fighting for our common, clay-cut kind,
Our truest treason could not be more loyal.

Let freedom ring from sea to shining sea,
But tremble at the hearth of polar thought.
With minds oppressed and skeletons of lead,
Their daily fatal battles must be fought.

If Godly sons could curb our ebbing souls,
Then may we now surrender moral roles.