Poetry

Annie Spratt photo

 

By

Chidi Anthony Opara

 

 

 

Sister Sarah Baartman

 

 

Endowed

With the endowment

Of African womanhood,

Sister Sarah Baartman

Endured childhood vicissitudes.

She found love,

But her love was murdered by racism.

 

Racism

Wrote an agreement she could not read

And forced her thumbprint thereon,

And shipped her

To the circuses of Europe.

 

Debasement

Drenched African womanhood

In the debased circuses of Europe,

Racism baptized Sister Sarah Baartman

“The Hottentot Venus”.

 

Death brought no rest,

Racism

Hacked her dead body

And displayed her body parts

In a museum

In the land of Napoleon.

 

Rest now

Sister Sarah Baartman.

Rest now

That you have been buried

In the land of your birth.

Rest now

Sister Sarah Baartman.

 

 

 

 

Blood Of The Natives

 

 

The sullen sky

Spat,

Fire rained

Onto the land of Baga.

 

Desolation,

Coven of carnivores.

Burned bodies

Begged to be buried.

 

Blood of the natives

Flowed

Through their farmlands,

Through their fish farms,

Through the domains of their deities.

 

The scanty survivors of Baga

Like the scanty survivors of Odi

Are now refugees.

 

Mouthpieces of officialdom

Mount

The decrepit dais,

Mouthing sympathies.

 

 

 

 

Resurrection Resonates

 

 

Dead

Or

Half-dead?

Many minds inquire.

 

“Dead!”

The choristers chorus.

Faith in resurrection recedes,

Yet

Resurrection resonates.

 

“Thou art made of earth

To earth thou must return”

Thus saith the Lord.

Yet

Resurrection resonates.

 

The law of the Lord

Languishes

In the prison of orthodoxy.

Resurrection resonates.

 

 

 

The Smoke That Must Be White

 

 

Shhh.

Silence.

The red robed supplicants

Are sequestered

Inside the Sistine.

 

They speak

In silent supplications

To the spirits

To pronounce a Pontiff.

 

The stewards are set

To send the smoke.

The smoke

That must be white.

 

 

 

 

Two-Pronged Papacy

 

 

With stones

From the shore

Of the holy sea,

Stones centuries old,

Holy seers stoned us.

Stunned,

We starred

At an approaching

Two-pronged papacy.

 

A shrinked papa

Will shield

A shinny papa

From the paparazzi.

 

From the bags of Borgia

Holy seers select props

To play parts

In the two-pronged papacy

Approaching.

 

At the shore

Of the holy sea

Absurdities will abound.

Holy seers

Will play unholy parts

And veneers

Of veneration will vanish.

 

 

 

 

 

Chidi Anthony Opara