A poem by Nnorom Azuonye
BOGUS
(note found on a dead ex-fugitive)
If you say that we don’t want you here
breathing our air, adding colour to our lives
it shows that you do not understand us.
You must appreciate we are not accustomed
to hoodlums burning down our family homes,
parents beheaded by rebels before our eyes
or wives raped while we watch, then killed
so near us that we stand in pools of their blood.
These stories belong to film, you tell them well,
may wish to chase fortunes at Hollywood.
Come tomorrow we must place you on a plane
back to your own country, where your colour
won’t matter and the cold is not so bad.
No harm shall befall you there, we pray
not to realise you were telling the truth all along.
May angels cover you with their wings tonight,
for tomorrow we shall have one last tea,
English, at the London Heathrow.
- Nnorom Azuonye
"Bogus" is taken from The Bridge Selection by Nnorom Azuonye (Eastern Light, UK, 2005) ISBN 1-905126-46-8. You can hear Nnorum read from this collection at the Pamphlet Poetry Party and Fair at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh on December 14.
(note found on a dead ex-fugitive)
If you say that we don’t want you here
breathing our air, adding colour to our lives
it shows that you do not understand us.
You must appreciate we are not accustomed
to hoodlums burning down our family homes,
parents beheaded by rebels before our eyes
or wives raped while we watch, then killed
so near us that we stand in pools of their blood.
These stories belong to film, you tell them well,
may wish to chase fortunes at Hollywood.
Come tomorrow we must place you on a plane
back to your own country, where your colour
won’t matter and the cold is not so bad.
No harm shall befall you there, we pray
not to realise you were telling the truth all along.
May angels cover you with their wings tonight,
for tomorrow we shall have one last tea,
English, at the London Heathrow.
- Nnorom Azuonye
"Bogus" is taken from The Bridge Selection by Nnorom Azuonye (Eastern Light, UK, 2005) ISBN 1-905126-46-8. You can hear Nnorum read from this collection at the Pamphlet Poetry Party and Fair at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh on December 14.
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on Thursday, December 08, 2005 at 7:40 pm.
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posted byI found this blog surfing.
Thank you for that powerful posting.
Regards.
posted by
A nice poem of irony, Sophie Thx for posting, sure I mighty think the Secreatory of State should read it. I say one love to all black victims going back to be killed.
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