Africa Be Joyful Poem by ANTHONY ANIGBATA

CRY NOT BLACK AFRICA

Cry not black Africa, cry not for your sons
Stolen along the swords,
Snatched through the seas
To other skuzzy shores

Cry not of the sun
Scratching your skin and soils,
The locust, toothing your crops
The drought over your lands
Not for the wilderness of your winds

Not for famine, that has furnished your families
Not for the idleness of your hands,
The weakness of your arms
Not for the rain which comes in might
Only during its season

Cry out for slavery, the slavery of your children
The slavery of their fathers
Slavery of their mothers
And that of thine charming Negress
Bin the past and work for the greatness of this motherland

Cry not for the dead sleeping silently,
In the chilled embrace of the earth
Not for yesterday's crimes
Done and covered
By the shepherds of the west
But for the that done, today by your fickle heirs

Cry not, for the children of this crèche will rise
To the apogee of good living
Cry not for those who try
To lift your hands up, but are lowered in the dawn
Not for your sons
Who battle themselves over bullshit?
Bringing shame to your race
Cry not for your heroes
Who for thy sake died in selfless service
Yet none to emulate their steps

Cry not for your legends, who bath themselves with beer?
And above all, use their powers to steal soup
Meant for all your stods
Cry not black Africa
Oh black Africa cry not, I say!

Africa be joyful
Filled with the searing sugars of bliss
For the bonds are broken;
The bitterness of chains and bondage
No longer site in your settlements.
Sing no longer
Those sedate songs but sublime
In the euphuistic songs of liberty
Surrenders your suits of servitude,
And work in all swards
Around all walls
While the snows scrunch underfoot
And the sun shade by shining brolly
Forget the pure pains of poverty
And head on the path to greatness.
Your new begets have been all over the world
Bringing bliss to your coloured race
So bin the past, for you are the moon
To light this places at dark

Cry not black Africa, oh black Africa, cry not
We will get there
Where the first world countries have stamped their feet
Above the barbed boundaries of poverty
Above the living standard of foreign aids
To a stage where our offspring's
Will no longer be oppressed
Cos of the myelinated nature of their skin
Lets now think less of ourselves
And more of this maltreated motherland

We have all to make us shine
Like the gleaming stars and moon
Peeping at this sordid abode at night
But greed and hatred, which inflames the heart
Have been the viruses in our black bloods.

We will get there Africa
When we no longer wage wars
With ourselves. When we put politics aside.
And our individual differences too.
When we unsit these tyrants and looters
Milking us in pretence of being our messiahs

So Africa be joyful
For you can rise
Above the light of the moon
Above the light of the sun
Above the light of the bright stars
For I see, a better day ahead.
Cry not black Africa
For we will get there
Ere dusks' dark blanket envelopes earth,
Ere day no longer drives by
And the descending winged trumpeters
Wake souls sleeping solitary under earth
Cry not black Africa
For we will get there
Perchance, after this
Tideling and turbulent times

Cry not black Africa, oh black Africa, cry not
And be joyful