What Made Me A Poet Poem by Abu Bakarr Phoenix Kamara

It is not the unremitting ego,
They put before country,
Driving them to madness.
It is not their yearning,
For praises out of the malady,
They offer in the charities of serving.

It is not their skimble-skamble
Of usurpation casting our haven,
Into tragedy's mouth,
Of small gains, hard work.

It is not the sun they have shrunk,
To be swallowed by their wrath;
For hearts to sit shuddering
With scars of ruins.

It is not the money they make,
Hands over fist in their
Exposition of greed that
Make them stunt around with
Fancy cars and ornate gowns;
To look like handsome thieves.

It is not the anger that flashes,
In the eyes of my countrymen;
Nor the tears that swell
Their eyelids for the deeds
Of the purported Moses,
Like pain in the butts
But still Exalt the Emperors,
Wearing no pants of pride.

No; the thoughts of it all
Only intensify anxieties of dying in the waiting
For sprawling palaces of servants
To see to our whimpers
And not for a class of soiled hands;
With no shame; no sense of disgust.

But what made me a poet,
Is the damn tremor of impulses
From the gory details of
Humanity lying on a bed of tyranny;
That tends to cuddle my countrymen
To stand on their feet to counter
Their aggression with force.

Somehow; this made me a poet,
With the defiant courage,
To speak truth to power and offer
A stream of words of hope,
To the daunted to wash the acnes,
And wrinkles wearing them out daily.

©De Sierra Phoenix 2022