Dogo Nahawa

It is official, this number of dead
men, women, children, dreamers,
dreams. And this homeland
of the Dogo Nahawa where terror
is everyday now, offered for morning
meals and news and the gospel
of false lullabies. Bodies, rotten
and rotting, must go back
to the gaping whole of an earth
that knew kindness and love.
But now it is all over,
this ritual of grief on the face
of the sun that knows how
to weep far longer than rain
or the breeze. Hundreds are dead
one morning from machete
and bullet and this betrayal
only believers can do,
their prayers for gods who cheat
on all of us for the life
we need to live.
It is all over, this story
of the Dogo Nahawa.
It is in my homeland,
the country I left behind
in order to see it coming
everyday, on papers and TV screens
and from the rumors of peace
and quiet from peacemakers
who sell tanks and drones
and bombs and hatred
for profits that do not know
the meaning of a poem
or a revolution or a prayer
for quick relief.

Hon, HI