A Poem By Isaac Kiiza Tibasiima

FOR YOU, AFRICA
By Isaac Kiiza Tibasiima
Sunday, February 13, 2011.
(Inspired by the ‘madness’ we showed at Obama’s win and so many other things. Disclaimer: Africa shall always be a big part of my loves)I wail for you, Africa, wail -I see your dreams dashedIn the split second of dawn,I see your rosebuds dieAt the noon-day heat,I see your hope fadeWith the dying sun at dusk.You have laid your hopeIn dreams unreachable,You have raised your flagsOnly to lower them again,You have smiled to the worldOnly to be grinned and laughed back atThey have made you feel goodOnly to destroy you again.Land of my fathersYours is a long dead glory,The ashes of your fame spread outAnd in them a hybrid of humansIs begotten, even strongerIn the new world they are born.So, where is your hope, homeland?Where are your found consolationsAt so rich a past?Where is your vision of the darkThat is only turned against you?Where is the lightThat you so much followed then?Africa, your past achesYour present stinksYour future….We shall get there, I hope,But now, I wailFor you never learnAnd continually murder yourselfMaking a once cherished dream of lifeA nightmare of deathAnd pale, so pale, it is.
Isaac Kiiza Tibasiima is an Ugandan writer, poet and academic. He is based at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.

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