Nuremberg In The Atlantic Poem by Francis Kokutse

This strange people labelled
my forebears as slaves,
bundled them onto vessels, and
later said they died on the high seas.

They did not burn
and no gas was used
to suffocate them
but they also died a painful death.

Yesterday l stood at the Osu beach
close to the warehouse where they
were held before their sad journery
to nowhere across the seven oceans
to see if there was a memorial for them.

No one sings for them
and nothing is said about
them because they are my kinsmen.

The blood that flows in our veins
seems to have a different colour
even though it is the same crimson
red that they also have.

They maltreated a man and woman
who could have become my
grand-parents badly by suffocating
them in the middle of the ocean and
threw their bodies to be fed on by
the fishes yet no one has built
a memorial for them.

I am singing not for anyone's ear
just to keep my anger to myself
so that l can find peace in my
inner self.

Let me offend no one because
l want to mourn those whom l
have lost in the ocean;
For those who died farming
for nothing and for people they
did not know and should not
have worked for, l am crying
and would cry daily for your death.