Too much sadness, not enough known
Of African madness...

Cruel eyes of tormentors,
Rapturous, unblinking,
Festering with hollow insanity
Through blood smeared bars
Of her padlocked confine.

Erratic hours of electrode pain,
Torturers wielded clubs and rod-irons,
Now intimate with her dampened places,
Humid musk of fear ever present,
Blanketing, permeating stagnant air.

Within the shadows of her soul,
She clings to life upon a thread,
Belief in her ideal, her country's future,
Freedom for her fellow man,
No longer choked by a despot's shroud.

Rough hewn, young-old, she sits
In bare breasted silence,
Carved into an ebony tomb,
Pain wracked, proud...
Washed by intermittent time.

Whilst mist clad silks
Slip softly, silent,
Protective...
Over weather worn, broken limbs,
Bruised blue in gentle morning light...

Susan Jahme © Copyright 2003
April 05, 2003
seacork@intekom.co.za