IF I CALL YOU AN AFRICAN WOMAN

Do you take pills of pride at night?
Because the way you rise into daylight
Seems like you’re a city on heaven’s tongue.
You’re black, like sparkles of polished diamond,
And your body smells of royal fragrance.
You tied your dreams around your waist
While you climbed mountains, beating gravity.
I touched you and I felt success melt into me
Like the way I melt when mama sings my eulogies.
I’m celebrating the African heritage tonight,
Of women who have tamed the height of eagles
And have broken the sieges of mediocrity;
Of queens who have ruled the ancient kingdoms
And survived the greatest and fiercest of all wars.
Watch as l paint the sky with elegant stars,
Teach my tongue some beautiful moonlight songs.
So if I call you an African woman
And you hear me sing praises of your fatherland,
If I call you an African woman
And you listen to songs in your mother’s tongue,
Would you throw your robes in the air, and dance?
———————-

REDEMPTION

A bird flew over a grey city.

Here, grey is the
– song of a barren goddess,
– colour of a burning cigar,
– weight of broken shadows,
– and memory of a beloved sister.

Sometimes when I watch this city at night,
I’d see ghosts lurking around torn walls;
Carrying dirge on their tongues, in silence.

Then I’d break into molecules of liquid water.
That is because this city died in my arms-
From a nation growing in beauty and godliness
To a poem written with the pieces of a broken spirit.

If you help find a girl in smokes tomorrow,
Tell her tonight is wake keep, tomorrow, funeral.
Daddy is laying her to rest, mummy is done mourning.
But I’m here; arms wide open, hoping for her redemption.

———————-
Poetry © Micheal Ace
Image by Afrikit from Pixabay (modified)