Island Of Tears Poem by Leonard Fong Roka

Blackman,
A thief in his Africa;
A disease in his Australia;
An on-looker of his pride and wealth on Bougainville
He is…since
Many years ago
And gone…JOY of the LAND.
His progenitors roamed trouble free
From cave to cave;
Jungle to Jungle
With the law of the land
Prevalent in the laughing hearts and
Smiling across all seasons…
This’d very hearts
Of honesty and respect
Now in the boiling pot
Of white man’s civilization—free will and free choice—
Of living and dying in peace of relegation.
He gives and taughts
Flowers of expression
Not that black, but white.
Yet, o lord of cemeteries,
An expression,
A sorrowful black man gestures
To earn a wage of living behind bars of blockade;
Hearts pounding o’er and o’er again
Tearful in disgrace,
From ages of mimicry;
Earning a waving legacy
To live and mess in exile.
He dies an animal death
By a legal gunman
Empowered in bulk shipment
Of ideal law
From the perfect God of Zion
That swallows gasping belly
To enrich this hand cups
To sting you generation
Chained in a line of slaves
Dwelling in worst misery hideouts
And filthy slums
Of emptiness and pain …
On the outskirts of your birthright
There you fight and kill
Squeezing your heart
To a strand of extinction …
Sun after sun
Tears storm your beds
Moaning the lost brothers
In the jungle of chaos,
Those petals of your joy
Carcassed by white divinity
Of peace and freedom …
Yet so colorful, Bougainville
Loved it then earned a living
In the harsh ridges…
Hearts sailing
For tomorrow is opaque
Like a fierce storm
Of destruction.