Poem – Sometime In April (By Adebesin Ibraheem)

Sometime In April: The 1994 Rwandan Genocide

 

The ancient grudge among the Rwandan clans

Inflamed by the corruptive white swallows

In April 94’ turned an indelible tale

Etched on the bloody pages of Rwandan history

 

The long gathering smog of apprehension

Billowing in the Rwandan skies

One haunting April, bade peace a bye

The state head flying in the leaden sky

Smashed to smithereens by trained bullets

From the fuming arsenal of a vengeful clan

 

The stuttering cracks of ballistic missiles

The screaming blasts of furiously flying bombs

Told that things had fallen apart

 

Vengeful khakhied Hutus raided the Tutsis’ homes

Banging and barking like rabid dogs at doors

Cruelly culling cockroached Tutsi kins

Suddenly sodden in crimson milk

Their mangled bodies stacked up in street morgues

Such gory sight of profuse skulls

At the gruesome exhibition of barbarous might

 

Escape scarce for Tutsi cockroaches

For holy forts too turned Golgothas!

 

Rwandan neighbours scandalously watched

Rwandan gods vilely forsook their foolish followers

Rwandan souls speedily swelled

As days infernally passed, pushing hundred

 

The horrid stench of the Tutsis’ blood

Soared high to tingle the hesitant heaven

Whose thirsty rays rolled out their proboscis

And suckle, in crimson vapour, the meandering milk

And soon the cloud burst in commiserative sobs

As maddened minds of clashing clans mended

The heaven wept its tranquilizing tears

And flooded the forlorn fields of wrecked Rwanda

Only after a hundred days of genocidal waste

 

Will the April scars ever heal?

© adebesin

 

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