AFRICAN, AGAIN

by Jim Kelly

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

President Donald Trump is easing his administration's cap on the number of refugees who can enter the United States, according to a forthcoming White House memo.  Set to be published officially on Wednesday, the directive says the additional 10,000 slots—raising the annual limit from 7,500 to 17,500—are reserved for white South Africans. —PBS, May 26, 2026

Once,
America looked to Africa
and carried away Black bodies
in chains.
Now,
America looks to Africa again—
not with shackles,
but with selective invitations
for White Afrikaners.
History doesn't repeat itself,
yet sometimes
it rhymes
in uncomfortable ways.

Jim Kelly is a Los Angeles-based poet originally from Beaufort, South Carolina. His work explores race, memory, democracy, and the lived experience of ordinary people navigating extraordinary times. Drawing on a lifetime of observation, his poems examine the intersection of history, identity, and public life.

AMERICAN FLAG BLUE

by Bonnie Proudfoot

In the twilight of my life, I came 

to the history of indigo: color 

and currency, “a length of cloth 

in exchange for one human body.” 

The secrets to its cultivation known 

by Africans. “In the 1700’s profits 

outpaced those of sugar and cotton.” 

The first American flag stitched with 

indigo-dyed cloth. Wave a flag sewn 

by shackled fingers while the blue 

bruise thickens, seeps its way into today, 

stain of the past slumps in the corner 

of every classroom, pain threaded into 

every pledge, each anthem we sing. 

Now, 250 more years around the sun,

we’re waiting for the arc of the moral

universe to catch the freedom train,

but the station is empty, streetlights

have begun to fail, first one, then another, 

shadows lengthening while our ears

press the rails, listening for the thrum.

My country tis of thee, sweet land—

it’s twilight here in the heartland.

the indigo light dims and lingers.

 

 

Author’s note: Source of the poem’s quotations: Indigo: In Search of the Color that Seduced the World by Catherine McKinley.

Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in anthologies and journals, including Sheila-Na-Gig, SWWIM, Gyroscope Review, Rattle, The New Verse News, and the New Ohio Review, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. Her novel Goshen Road(OU/ Swallow) received the WCONA Book of the Year and was long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Poetry books include Household Gods, a chapbook, on Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, and Incomer, released in 2026 on Shadelandhouse Modern Press.

JANE

by Terri Kirby Erickson

“Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference.”  — Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope (2021)

 

Jane Goodall traveled alone in Gombe, save for the man who 

filmed a young Englishwoman slipping into the African land-

scape as easily as a ray of light between the sparse canopy of 

 

an acacia tree. Clad in a khaki shirt and shorts, she could have

been Eve exiled from the Garden of Eden, aware but uncaring 

of venomous snakes that slithered around her, the bitter taste 

 

of forbidden fruit, all but forgotten. Doing what she was meant 

to do, Jane believed nothing could harm her (as she often said)

and nothing did as she moved through grasslands, woodlands,

 

steep valleys, and rocky slopes, crossing streams and climbing 

trees while trying to find the chimps. Instead, she saw brightly-

colored birds and butterflies, bushbucks and other wildlife as 

 

she searched, month after month with no chimpanzees in sight. 

But finally, her patience was repaid by a male dubbed David 

Greybeard. And after him there were others, Goliath, Flo, and 

 

Fifi, defying scientists who claimed chimps were incapable of 

empathy, happiness, or grief, labeled them by numbers instead 

of names. But let’s not travel just yet, to what Jane would learn 

 

and what good she would do in the future, this kind and gentle 

woman, as brave as anyone ever born. You have only to see her 

lovely face on film as David, rather than running away, ignores 

 

her presence while eating figs—to know this moment was the 

apex of her young life, a dream that began with a toy monkey 

her father gave her instead of a bear. For now, I’d rather think 

 

of Jane Goodall sitting still as a hill or a stone while watching 

the chimps—her expression of joy and wonder akin to Eve’s 

if she’d been welcomed back to Paradise and at last, forgiven.

 

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven full-length collections of poetry, including Night Talks: New & Selected Poems (Press 53), which was a finalist for (general) poetry in the International Book Awards and the Best Book Awards. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, including “American Life in Poetry,” Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, JAMA, ONE ART, Poetry Foundation, Rattle, The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and many more. Among her numerous awards are the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, Nautilus Silver Book Award, Tennessee Williams Poetry Prize, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize. She lives in North Carolina.

CANADIAN DEATHS IN THE BOER WAR

Written after reading about the North Koreans who have been killed, wounded, or captured fighting in Ukraine for Russia

by Steve Hellyard Swartz

In Quebec City there's a monument to Canadian soldiers killed in action during the Boer War in South Africa from 1899 to 1902

Whenever I saw that little memorial I thought about what it must have been like to be a young French Canadian man conscripted into service,

You're on a boat with others trying to be brave

And it's not that hard, still on the boat, there are card games and smokes and the food is bad but you're young and it's an adventure

You don't love that most of your fellow soldiers aren't from Quebec and speak English but they seem okay and there are enough French-speakers so you pretty much know what's going on

And then you get there

Which is where exactly?

Where are we?

No one is exactly sure what they call the place where  you are

You get off the boat and the sign isn't what you recognize as French or English.

Someone tells you it's Dutch, or what the white people in this place speak, which comes from Dutch

You want to know how the hell the Dutch got involved in all this but no one has time to tell you

Red-faced men are barking in English for everybody to do something

You look around and do what everybody else is doing

The red-faced man and other red-faced men are pointing and screaming for you to March!

You march

Some of you are smiling and when you ask why you're told it's better than being on that fucking boat, at least this is something, at least we're doing what we're here to do

Which is what? And where are we? 

Nobody knows for sure but at least it's not nothing

You get on a train and it's warm

Windows are opened

Cigarettes are passed around, someone has a bottle but it's empty before you can get it

The train rolls on forever

You look out the window and it looks like a lot of nothing

Is this what they're fighting over? And who is this "they" anyway?

It's the fucking British, it's not the French, that much you know.

So who is it then - the British against the Dutch? Or what passes for Dutch out here? What passes for British?

You wonder if you pass for British? You think about how your parents and grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your sister and brother, would not be happy with you passing for British

So why are you here? You look at the other soldiers laughing, smoking, passing around another bottle.

You know that the bottle will be empty before it reaches you

This is bullshit you think

Why the fuck am I here?

Somebody offers you a cigarette and you take it

An English-speaker offers you the bottle with one swig left,

You take it, you smile, he lights your smoke.

You think about that as you lie on the field later that day

You think about his nice smile and how he flicked the match against his thumb

You'd die for a smoke right now, you'd die for a swig

You close your eyes and feel the African sun hot on your face,

You hear someone yelling but you don't know these words

You don't want to die like this, this is no way to die

So you open your eyes to see the one thing you understand

You open your eyes and stare at the sun.

Steve Hellyard Swartz's movie Never Leave Nevada opened at the Sundance Film Festival thirty-five years ago this week. He is an award-winning poet, filmmaker, movie critic, and the author of a new memoir The Last Jewish Mother Joke.

AT YOUR GRAVE

by Martha Landman

Arthur Rimbaud 20 October 1854 - 10 November 1891

I’m the only visitor today,  
small cemetery, speechless graves,
Your mailbox at the gate is full of fan-letters,
as if you’re the tooth fairy or some god.
 
It is wet and cold and my shoes 
gave me hell on the walk here.
Tomorrow I’ll wear my sandals, rain or not.
There’s lots I could ask you, but not here,
not today where you lie helplessly dead
on a peaceful summer’s afternoon, 
violet eyes shrouded in eternal sleep,
in the same plot with your mother 
and seventeen-year-old Vitalie.
 
Come to the cobbled square with me tonight.
Let’s dine and dance and have a quiet beer,
no absinthe, no hashish. Afterwards we’ll walk 
along the river Meuse under chestnut trees, 
past the mill, step into the tanner’s little boat
at the quay. Let’s sail into the flimsy air, 
set the night on fire, our reflections on the water,
you melding into me, the moon our lamp. 
Let’s write formless verse about our years in Africa,
mine as a child, yours as a merchant, explorer. 
I promise I won’t ask what I know you won’t tell
           —why did you give up poetry?


Martha Landman writes in Adelaide, South Australia on unceded Kaurna land. Her first single collection like scavenger birds was published by ICOE press, June 2023. Her poem “Girl From the Underground” (for Arthur Rimbaud) was highly commended in the WA Poetry d’Amour contest in August 2024.

FAYE’S INAUGURATION

by Anayo Dioha

Just over two weeks ago, Bassirou Diomaye Faye was a little-known opposition leader languishing in jail, detained without trial on charges including inciting insurrection, who had never held elected office. One week ago, he defeated the governing party's candidate, Amadou Ba, in the country's presidential election, winning 54% in the first round. On Tuesday, the 44-year-old has been sworn in as the fifth president of Senegal, becoming Africa's youngest elected head of state. In a region where a large majority of the population are under 30, his victory offers hope to those young people frustrated by a lack of economic opportunities, with old elites seemingly clinging to power. —BBC, April 2, 2024

Rotten roots from decades past

Sinking deeper. Branches

Decaying, falling apart

Into their rancorous unrest

From this foisted tree of shrouded

Democracy.

Evergreen leaves pruned, trampled

Black, mutilated barks

Of overburdened trunk and branches

Bearing colonial scars and fresh bruises.

The rape, the loot; plagues and

Persecutions–the tale of many

Dark cities.

But look! A spark ignites in Dakar!

An ecdysis seems in progress.

This bloom just may smile

At the sky; it could be left to bask

In the sun.

But how will it fare around the pack

Of predators gathered at the lounge—

The inauguration lounge?

 

Anayo Dioha is a Nigerian and has been previously published in The New Verse News.

DON’T FORGET

by Laura Rodley

The cause of mysterious mass deaths of African elephants has finally been unraveled — and scientists who authored a new report say that the outbreaks could be more likely to occur amid conditions created by the ongoing climate crisis. Thirty-five African elephants in northwestern Zimbabwe dropped dead under baffling circumstances between late August and November 2020. Eleven of the massive herd animals died within a 24-hour period… Earlier that same year, about 350 elephants in neighboring northern Botswana also had died suddenly over the course of three months… It turns out a bacterial infection killed the elephants, according to the research based on samples taken from 15 of the animals that died in Zimbabwe… The deaths took place as food and water resources dwindled during the dry season, forcing the elephants to travel increasing distances to look for water and to forage… The authors said that heat, drought and population density in that area were likely contributing factors to the outbreak. And the extreme conditions that scientists project will occur with more frequency as Earth warms could mean more elephant deaths in the future. —CNN, November 6, 2023

We don’t forget, we remember the waterholes
shown to us by the elders:
in Zimbabwe we trekked lumbering our feet
across the arid dry ground, leaves and
twigs, fruits already eaten
by those hungry before us.
It is a fever that starts first as thirst,
no relief from flapping our ears back,
waving dry dust across each others’ backs,
we remember the waterholes our elders
brought us to in times of thirst—
they’ve been here before, but never so long as this.
We don’t forget, we hold all the memories
of the beauty of the running water,
the coolness in the shade, how
you loved each other, all of you—
don’t forget—the rumble of our feet
transmitting messages to each other as
we roam further apart, the sound
of jeeps from rescuers from other years
bringing banana leaves, but this time,
the water holes we remembered
had dried up, you walked too far away
for our message to reach you—turn back.

Laura Rodley, Pushcart Prize winner, is a quintuple Pushcart Prize nominee and quintuple Best of Net nominee. Latest books: Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Publishing, Counter Point by Prolific Press, and As You Write It Lucky 7, a collection of 11 writers' work.

POGUE

a duet-poem

by James Schwartz & Joshua Merchant 

Dedicated to LGBTQ Africa 

Uganda / Iraq / Iran / Tennessee ban

Man / Man / Referendum / Under ban

The streets are red / Throats red

Men of God mock our dead.

bury me under your usages 

of my cousins you told to be 

real enough to see seventeen 

under an underpass pass the school.

Priests / Preachers / Pastors / Political

Queers / Debacle / Death / Ridicule

The streets are silent / Mob violent

The Church is barred / Shamans silent.

loudly calling us everything under

the book bins by burning the cooked 

pens held by our teachers your forefathers 

sent by a ship disguised as emails and hit send.

Scott Lively / Greg Locke / Exporting hate

In AK-America / Always great

In Harvey Milk / David Kato / Frank Mugisha we trust

In rainbow love we trust /

a bloodlust called me by your name. spoke of God. 

my father taught me the difference between 

little and big G’s. I know your wallet knows us well. 

which pocket swells when you hear a bullet shelled? 

Uganda / Iraq / Iran / Florida ban

Man / Man / Under ban

Republicans going rogue

Preachers / Same thing / pogue. 

James Schwartz is a poet & author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011), Punatic (Writing Knights Press, 2019) & most recently Motor City Mix, Sunset in Rome (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He resides in Detroit, Michigan. Twitter @queeraspoetry  

Joshua Merchant is a Black Queer native of East Oakland, CA exploring what it means to be human as an intersectional being. What they’ve been exploring as of late has been in the realm of loving and what it means while processing trauma. They feel as though as a people, especially those of us more marginalized than others, it has become too common to deny access to our true source of power as a means of feeling powerful. However, they’ve come to recognize with harsh lessons and divine grace that without showing up for ourselves and each other, everything else is null and void. Innately, everything Merchant writes is a love letter to their people. Because of this they’ve had the honor to witness their work being held, understood, published or forthcoming in literary journals such as 580Split, The Root Work Journal, Anvil Tongue Books, Spiritus Mundi Review, and elsewhere. Twitter: @ibursailor_dune 

DIASPORA FOOTBALL

by Indran Amirthanayagam

It was a difficult day at the Qatar World Cup. Our American ambassadors, 

Argentina and Brazil, both with attacking teams who strike as lightning 

and sit back as well controlling the ball, dribbling it back and forth, 

 

wearing the patience down of their European opponents—had leads 

vanish with minutes to go, the European powers striking back, 

and in the case of Croatia pulling off the upset, mighty Brazil losing 

 

on penalties. But Argentina survived. Shot its penalties with clinical 

power, and their goalkeeper used his brain to anticipate the directions 

of the Dutch kicks. I am writing this to remember a Friday in December 

 

when honor lay on the field, and glory, and also bitter defeat. This is 

the field of battle, the football field, the field of dreams, the field of 

identities, how if our country loses we shift then to its natural neighbor, 

 

overcoming regional rivalries in the name of a greater continental unity. 

Imagine how Moroccans feel now as they represent their country and all 

of Africa and all migrants too, as many have grown up away from 

 

their kingdom, in exile, when they strap on their boots to play Portugal 

in the next quarterfinal? My documenting pen will dress with them. 

The diaspora team, my friend calls not only Morocco but France, 

 

England and many others. Football is the identity card, 

the passport. Borders are fluid, 2022 composed of a motley crew 

of border crossers, migrant wonders, football envoys.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is the newest collection of Indran's own poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

PERSPECTIVE

by Marc Swan

“This is a relatively civilized” city, he says, referring to Kyiv, after saying it’s not like Iraq or Afghanistan. https://t.co/q6UEtwvzyZ

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 26, 2022

Each morning after an espresso

from our six-cup stovetop

with granola, yogurt and blueberries

in our favorite ceramic bowls

we review the news in the online sources

disheartening is a mild term

enlightening

sometimes

watching the world dissolve before our eyes

is unnerving, overwhelming, disjointing

first European invasion since WW II

how quickly we have forgotten invasions

in Gaza, Egypt, Lebanon, the Balkans, Africa, 

and points beyond and in between

today eastern and western economies 

have our attention

fuel prices, trade options, empty store shelves

car prices, building supplies, and yes

the list has only begun

we are interlocked in this chaotic world

of language differences, money differences

but most of all ideology differences

that create distrust, uncertainty, and taint

the taste of Pavé Toulousain cheese

we used to get

from the French farm outside Toulouse

and the crisp white Txakolina 

imported from the Pyrenees—

that once seemed so important 

Marc Swan, a retired vocational rehabilitation counselor, lives in coastal Maine. Poems recently published in Gargoyle, Crannóg, Chiron Review, Queen’s Quarterly, among others. His fifth collection all it would take was published in 2020 by tall-lighthouse (UK).

BEYOND THE NEW WORLD

by Mark Tarren

Image Source: Africa Geographic Magazine

"Shithole' remark by Trump makes global headlines—but it doesn't quite translate” —The Guardian, January 13, 2018

The old man sits before
the night sky,
a canopy of tiny crystals.

His grandson seated beside him
this small boy,
a jewel in his ancient shadow.

His wisdom speaks before him
like dust to the stars,
the boy was born
in the land before language
before the tongues of men
where a dune or a palm
was called after a lover
or a neighbour’s house
something loved from the past,
where there was no word for dawn
no words for the moon or the stars
or tears on skin
or eyes on maps

or country,
nothing to lose in translation.

The old man answered the boy’s silence:

I have seen many kings from the west fall,
their thrones crumble
and drift out to sea
the ripples from their empty voices
never reach our shores.

My son, we live in the land without words
this dull ache, this darkness
they call fear
sank into the ground like rain
an age ago
a forgotten song that only sometimes
wails in the winds.

Hate is a roar that was silenced
in the smile lined eyes
of our fathers.

Hunger is a song thief;
we dance in the bounty
of our one shared heart.

The word for our people
was birthed inside your mother
like birdsong,
before you were born,
before there was a word for
the colour of our skin,
before the word for memory,

before she left for The New World.

Mark Tarren is a poet and writer based in Queensland, Australia. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various literary journals  including TheNewVerse.News, The Blue Nib, Poets Reading The News, Street Light Press and Spillwords Press.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT BACK THEN

by Gilbert Allen

Slavery in America began when the first African slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, to aid in the production of such lucrative crops as tobacco. —History.com


Four hundred years ago, we needed you.
Turn Air Force One into a time machine.
Bless colonists with your enlightened views.
Four hundred years ago, we needed you
to end this chain migration’s witches’ brew
before it started. Be our go-between!
Four hundred years ago, we needed you.
Turn Air Force One into a time machine.

Gilbert Allen lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His most recent books are Catma and The Final Days of Great American Shopping.

PLUNDER

(for Cecil of Zimbabwe)
by Carolyn Gregory

This is the last known photograph of Cecil the lion (bottom) taken by Brent Stapelkamp before he was killed by the American dentist. Cecil is pictured with Jericho, a male lion who it is feared could kill the cubs of the pride fathered by Cecil. Source: White Wolf Pack.

1.

All day, he walks beside me,
his long bones slower indoors,
his gold sheen growing rich
with brown and yellow
walking past my fans.

All his life, he has taught sons
how to hunt in the savannah,
crouching and leaping
behind tall grass,
how to go for the jugular
and to strip the meat,
bringing it home to feed the family.

He has shared ancient stories
of his grandfather, the cave lion
living by his teeth and strength
five hundred thousand years ago.
Regal and triumphant,
he haunts me now.

2.

The dentist was bored
with his life of drilling and filling,
tired of his other trophies.

Africa called him back,
the roaring and howling of animals
luring him from suburbia,
pulling him away from snow
and malpractice.

One or two gunshots would be enough
to take down a great predator,
more satisfying than implants
and root canals,

a souvenir for the wall,
his ruff all groomed, the eyes
replaced with yellow glass.

3.

Shoot him with a bow and arrow,
finish him off with guns.
Make sure it's done
so the skin can be harvested
and turned into a rug.
Be sure to wield a heavy axe
to take off his head.

We want to put it on
its lacquered wall mount.
It will look fine
near the yellow afghans and throws,
terrific in our rec room.

When the fire overtakes our woods
and timber falls asunder,
when the lion calls out
his wolves and bobcats
to tear down this house of plunder,

we will not understand
the voodoo medicine big cats call
nor the end of trophies
and bragging rights
nature makes due.


Carolyn Gregory has published poems and music reviews in American Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Main Street Rag, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ygdrasil, Seattle Review. Her first and second books were published by Windmill Editions in Florida.

MEMORIAL DAY MUSINGS

by George Salamon

This April 1865 photo shows the graves of Union soldiers who died at the Race Course prison camp in Charleston, which would later become Hampton Park. On May 1 of that year, former slaves gave the fallen a daylong funeral. Source: The Library of Congress via The Post and Courier

"Thus, the men and women we honor this Memorial Day are all those who have served this nation from its founding 239 years ago--since the Revolutionary War, we have lost 1,010,485 men and women in combat--as well as all those who defend us now against the threat of global terrorism." --Robert L. Dilenschneider, The Huffington Post, May 19, 2015

Once it was a  day of memory  to celebrate
The valiant art of war for just cause.
Today we march to bad music,
Civilization's enlightenment a puny seed
As the strong wipe out the weak and
The tyrants of the earth annihilate
Human work and sweat.
From desert in Africa to wheat field in Ukraine
The victors are not liberators
But bitter fear, hunger, fire and death.
         
On Memorial Days past did wise men speak to us?
Today we hear small men with big voices.
Men who know not what they are
And will not become what we know.


George Salamon taught German at several East Coast colleges, served as reporter on the St. Louis Business Journal and Sr. Editor for Defense Systems Review. He contributes regularly to the Gateway Journalism Review, Jewish Currents and The New Verse News.

INVISIBLE

by Michelle Marie

Source: NY Daily News

nothing is fixed
not the broken boat on the water
not the broken lives fleeing the forces of war
not the broken system that dehumanizes and deports

nothing stands
between those on board and
the breaking of the waves
not the luck that never holds out
not the promises that never pan out
not the border patrol that refuses to look out

for a ship lost at sea
in waters that never deceive:

only when your image is no
longer reflected in the water
do you begin to see yourself
the way the world sees you


Michelle Marie has written for Infita7 and Bluestockings Magazine.

COURTING

by Gil Hoy

Should a black man
in America

love his country?

She should be
lovely to be loved,

not my country
right or wrong.

Only White Men
wrote the constitution with
their rich quill pens

from imperial England,
and white fruits flourished

atop Broken Black Backs,
Flagellation and snapped
roped necks.

America elected a President
of all colors, perhaps Her
finest hour,

But the slave's legacy
in America is still
one of subjugation---

So an NAACP office
is bombed, white
cops kill black boys

NYC mayor warns son
"be wary", whips

speak to supremacists,
and a homeless black man

named Africa
should be careful
where he reaches.


Gil Hoy is a regular contributor to The New Verse News.  He is a Boston trial lawyer and studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in philosophy. Gil started writing his own poetry and fiction in February of last year.  Since then, his poems and fiction have been published in multiple journals, most recently in The Potomac, The Zodiac Review, Harbinger Asylum and Earl of Plaid Literary Journal.

THE REASONS WHY

by Kristin LaTour

South Sudanese rebels seized a strategic oil town last week, separating terrified residents by ethnicity before killing hundreds, the United Nations said. "We believe that at least 400 people were killed in Bentiu in the past week," said Toby Lanzer, the top United Nations official in South Sudan. Before the attacks, some rebel commanders broadcast messages on local radio warning certain groups to leave town. "Others broadcast hate messages declaring that certain ethnic groups should not stay in Bentiu and even calling on men from one community to commit vengeful sexual violence against women from another community," the U.N. Mission in South Sudan said. At one hospital, Nuer men, women and children who refused to cheer the rebels were killed, according to the United Nations. --CNN, April 23, 2014

We killed them because it seemed the best thing
at that time, that time being one where both sides
were firing guns, in the context of having guns
that can shoot fast and accurately, bullets traveling
through walls and doors like jets puncturing clouds.

We killed so many because they were not stopping
not even to reload, just hurling fire and metal at us. Or
they were running away and we gave chase, falling on
their necks with our teeth. It wasn't until after we saw
they had no shoes, no weapons, but the blood was sweet.

We killed the women and children for aesthetic reasons.
Their genes were not the same as ours, not entirely, and
our skin is fairer than theirs. Their skin reminded us of stones
and the sky during a storm. Falling rocks and lightning
are dangers. The land seems brighter now without them.

We killed even the crops and livestock because it was a drought
and the fields were dusty, the leaves curling. No one would eat
such miserable gleanings. The chickens and pigs left foul
odors we could not stomach, and the rare cow was bloated
and called for milking. We didn't like the sound, so mournful.

We killed the songs and dances, the ceremonies and paintings
because they reminded us too much of our own when we were
far from our homes, sleeping in abandoned factories and keeping
watch over the night with just a small fire burning. We remembered
our wives and mothers voices and steps, how the priest blessed us.

Kristin LaTour's poems have appeared on The New Verse News and in journals like Witness, Fifth Wednesday, Adanna, dirtcakes, and Rock and Sling. She has three chapbooks, the most recent being Agoraphobia from Dancing Girl Press, 2013. She teaches at Joliet Jr. College and lives in Aurora, IL.

FOR KENYA

by Rick Gray

Image source: Yahoo! News

We're not sorry, al-Shabaab, for wasting
our troubled youths on African pleasures
your imported bullets will never find.

Your aims will forever miss us,
whose aging hearts have grown wise on
everything you so preciously despise.

So kill the kaffirs in the mall
to satisfy your schoolboy's mind.
We know those who can make you cry

why God is great, without books or prayers,
pure as a country who offered us
everything she had

all that is holy and wild
in the wicked smiles of lovely women
who have cursed you blind.


Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya. He currently teaches in Afghanistan. He has poems forthcoming in Salamander and r.kv.r.y.