• In my head
• It’s all in the past –
• The continent brutally wronged
• by the villains of the past
• whose children are still ahead
• with no regret
• 
  
• The race is left for dead
• still breathing – albeit difficult
• Putrefying but packaged
• like a corpse left on the street
• The people still offended
• And the wrongdoers still make orations with no guilt
• 
  
• Who will avenge the man of colour?
• Whose is it to do what is right?
• To whom is justice and reprimand?
• The self-imposed superior or the sell-out?
• Whose idea is it to be wicked?
• Who were the merchants?
• 
  
• To whom is the anger of the almighty to be kindled
• if not to the coloured evil merchants?
• Cursed men of greed whose belly is their god
• Was that a time to receive rum, guns, clothes and beads?
• 
  
• The people haven’t recovered
• We need to face it.
• The pains still abound,
• The nations yet hurt
• The stench of the carcass oozes unabated

It can no longer be deodorised nor hid under the mat

• Heal Africa, almighty, I plead
  
• For the nations still hurt
• The lady of justice is not coloured
• The powers that be determine her sight –
• The common wealth continues to be ransomed
• And the ruins go on unrepentant
• Houses and yacht everywhere, money stashed abroad
• and their own people mourn.
• 
  

(To the memory of Patrice Émery Lumumba: 2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961)

Ope Afeni © 2-7-22

In addition to being a creative writer, Opeyemi Afeni is a lawyer based in Edmonton. He has a couple of published titles: The Game that never was; The Difference we can make amongst others.