Sonnet to Spring - Charles Tompson

I.

Gay blooming goddess of the flow'ry year,
Enchanting Spring, thou youth of nature, hail!
What artless beauties in thy train appear,
What balmy fragrance swells th' ambrosial gale,

The Dog in Kivulu - Ralph Bitamazire

The dog in Kivulu,
Thin, bony and yawning;
The dog in Kivulu,
Panting and squatting
Like its master.

Desolation - Kao-Shih

I
There was a King of Liang—a king of wondrous might—
Who kept an open palace, where music charmed the night—

You - O'tega Oghenechovwen

'You'
- For a brother, James Ojiyovwi Omotor
On the "Caucasian" of his birthday!

You,
With your stern but comrade eyes
You looked up

When we tell - Loa Niumeitolu

I know English was brought
by White people to our country.

Since I met You, I'm not afraid - Frances Angermayer

Look, God, I have never spoken to You,
But now I want to say, "How do you do?"
You see, God, they told me You didn't exist.
And like a fool I believed all this.

The Gazelle Incident - Jack Lahui

Due north-east from here,
in the land of tremors and eruptions,
the police stood like the Spartans,

White Shame - Adel Khozam

The sentence was uttered in its entirety
Why did you not believe it
The sentence?

An Alien Land - Muhammad Salih

They invite me to breakfast in another language.
Like a blind man in the streets of the city
They lead me in only three or four words of another language.

Humankind - Magtymguly Pyragy

Whether asleep or awake, he will always keep in his mind,
Whatever work is chosen by humankind,
The grief of being poor won’t make you depressed,
If a man becomes a beggar wishing to have a wife.

Straying Far From Myself - Ami Lhago

If you look back
Maybe you would see
Yourself

They Came Tonight - Léon Damas

They came the night the
tom
tom
spun from
rhythm
to
rhythm

Day-to-day - Carmen González Huguet

“Yet we want to return to the place we love.

And if God lets us live, we’ll return to eat

corn-on-the-cob fresh from the field,

if we are given the chance…”

Salvadoran refugee, April 1986

And of course,

despite the bloodshed,

life went on

tying its laces.

I've gone - I come - Trefossa

if the dry season wind starts singing
in Mahogany Street:
- Creole, how?
I'll answer:
- here am I
- granny's bench has been set ready
- once upon a time ... once upon a time ...

War, war, war - Patricia Mercy

War, war, war
Who are you and where do you come from?

To my Mother - Camara Laye

Black woman, African woman, O mother, I think of you …
O Dâman, O mother,
who carried me on your back, who nursed me,

The Faithful Soul - Hildebert of Lavardin

With changeless faith the turtle-dove
To one sole mate gives all her love;
With him alone, in union sweet,
Both night and day her pulses beat.

No, Poetry - Amilcar Cabral

No, Poetry
Do not hide within the inscrutability of my soul

Children of the Sun and the Wind - Mohammed Ebnu

We still live
on the brink of nothingness,
between the north and south of the seasons

Gorée Baobab Island - Suzanne Tanella Boni

(1)
perhaps happiness is so far away
invisible among the tamarind leaves
when my hand brushes the fruit
to share them with spirits laughing at man’s
cruelty to man

Shame and Fear - Ndouna Depenaud

It's raining and it's sunny and the ghosts are
babbling twins behind the trees.
Grandfather, who knows how to make you laugh.
You whose beard blooms with anecdotes.
Tell us a beautiful story, do you want?

Have you heard it tell? - Fidelia Nimmons

Have you heard it tell that:
His Majesty Oba O’s country
Was abundantly rich in,
All manner of natural resources,
Rubber, cocoa, cotton, palm kernel and more.

Hope to the end - Joseph Kokou Koffigoh

I saw everything that day: the lightning in the sky,
Armed by tyrant explosives and lightning;
The bursts of hope struck at the heavy weapon;
The distraught hope calling on the Lord.

How great, how beautiful that Sabbath rest - Peter Abelard

How great, how beautiful that Sabbath rest,
Kept in the court eternal of the blest!
Repose for weary souls! for brave reward!
For there our all in all shall be the Lord.