I have Jumped ship
Oh you country of my ancestors
Home of my fathers, Why have you fallen
deaf to my cry.
Letting me swim like an impoverished dog with its ever
salivating tongue, over the dark deep depth of many
waters.
Oh you men of my skin, my kinsmen
Wasn’t the honey you bath in meant for all
And yet you swallow it all leaving only the smell
Of your body and we scream thief.
And I am left to swim like an impoverished dog with its ever
salivating tongue, over the dark deep depth of many
waters. With the loudest song from the dead.
Oh you men of my homeland, fruits of my fathers
How long have you been infected with this insomnia
of self and forgotten ubuntu. You have become diseased
by blindness, for you do not see the lining up to test the
ancestral juice.
And I left to swim like an impoverished dog with its ever
salivating tongue, over the dark deep depth of many
waters. With the loudest welcoming song from the dead
With the loudest welcoming song from the dead, from the
darkest furthest distance of the dead. I have jumped ship.
© 2012 Anawana Haloba