Page 55 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 7

AFRIKA IS GOD'S

I Can’t breathe

By Samuel Phillips

And so the story went
Of a death on the street just the other day
In the land of the free and in the home of the brave
Knees for praying no more
Death by slayers of blackness one more
They say he spent counterfeit money
But what is money in the face of human cruelty
Nothing but a piece of paper with dead men’s faces
The truth is, he couldn’t breathe

Many decades ago so the story went
On the floating glorified boats of madness
Captured and chained outside of will and purpose
Nabbed from their villages with no hope of a return
Death by slayers of blackness, songs of hopelessness
They say our fathers were too primitive and naïve to be humans
Fit only for the cages and chains of slavery
After the many years of savagery they say we are free on papers
But what really is the freedom of the body outside of the liberty of the mind
It’s nothing but a reliving of the past but in a more deadly and subtle hell
The truth is, they just couldn’t breathe

We see it every time close by
And we hear it as an echo from the distance
In the heart of the home called Afrika
Tears of broken hearts and deadly sorrows
They say nothing good can come out of us
What a lie, because we invented good
But what really is the use of good
If the good ones get killed and the thieves get praised
The question is, can we breathe please?

When will it finally end?
Knees of death and blows of wickedness
Black face downwards trying to hold on to the last gust of breath
Masks of fear, black uniforms of dread
Locked down for fear of what we can’t see
Knocked dead by him who was supposed to be a life saver
A cycle of wickedness and a straight line of pain
For when an Afrikan is killed, mother Afrika sheds tears of sorrow
But what really happened to the humanity we once knew
A question for another day but only if we are allowed to breathe

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