Olof Palme Avenue Poem by Isaac Maliya

You welcome strangers with a flinch
You are like a Dracula, indeed
Friendly during the daytime
Death zone during the night.

Symbol of peace is your name
Yet, you know not it at all
In nocturnal darkness you are
Devoid of the city’s lumination.

How much more blood is to be shed?
Your history is one of misery
Record, one of mourning
For lack of alternatives
Not for natural passion
Alongside you, we live.

Oh! Why can’t you ceasefire?
You T-junction the hero of liberation, peace
The celebrated Eduardo Mondlane
Yet you proclaim death, still.
Olof Palme Avenue! Ceasefire!

Dedication: To all lives lost along
Olof Palme Avenue in Maputo.

Sunday,24th May 1992.
Maputo, Mozambique.