Three yards up the road
When your great-great-Grandmother
sold across the brush of cotton
was singing songs of Africa
and working under lash and lock
and yoke the white man slaver set
the child in England shivered
Silently as Dada died or Mama died
she moved to separation from her own
became a Parish burden picking oakum
was sold to northern mills in groups of slaves
locked inside forbidding winter temples
stocking dross the Parish sent away
When your great-great-Grandmother
sold by stronger tribes in Africa
to make them rich and build their acres
to feed the rich man's people hunger
passing cramped across the ocean
watching daily deaths - or hourly
the child in England shivered
Wearing worn out summer clothing
shoeless in the depths of winter
working fourteen hours unstopping
Hunger semi-slaked by gruel slops
in mills where childhood took a beating
When your great-great-Grandmother
had her babies traded from her
on plantations where the working time was long
and overseers beat and sometimes killed
and raped and pillaged every woman
drunken eyes could squander
the beaten child devoid of mother
dragged a body dwarfed by starving
mis-shapen from the broken bones untreated
locked inside her working prison
sealed at night with others in a tomb
where straw - and other ill-used bodies - comforted
And you can say and lift your head
When my great-great-Grandmother
was taken out of Africa by white men
she ceased her African-African slavery
began her slavery to white men
Then you turn and call me racist
And I have nothing more to say
except my great-great-Grandmother
having parents dead or starving
was a burden on the Parish of her birth
which sold her into untold desolation
in a country which pretended to be kind
and left her slave and starving
as a cog inside an Empire
where the rich grew richer still
on the blood of starving children
out of Africa or three yards up the road
poem by Charlotte Peters Rock
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Related quotes
The Pride To Be An African
My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of which everybody imitates
My Africa of which culture exceed the Greek
My Africa of which everyone is jealous of
My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of enormous natural endowment
My Africa of Non-Violence
My Africa of Amorous populates
My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of patriot men and women
My Africa of shelter and vintage hospitality
My Africa of great ancestral mythology
My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa that bore fruits of black diamonds
My Africa which is a gift to the whole world
My Africa of great leadership
My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of learned youths
My Africa of a bright generation
My Africa true tradition
My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of black pageant women
My Africa of strong men
My Africa from who we all hail from
For every African deserves a Nobel Prize in
Existence.
poem by Fasan paul
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Poem for my Grandmother
By the time
I knew grandmother
She was no more
It took sisteen-years
To know
Of her pains
On that sick bed,
My sisteen-year-old
Knowingness was shocked
To hear mum narrate her past
Grandmother as indeed a great
Woman n her life time.
Each time I go to her grave
I break down and cried for her,
I wish grandmother saw
The best of me
Before she was taken to the beyond
I know she would be proud of me
Let this poem of mine
Be for her,
My great grandmother.
poem by Efe Benjamin
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The White African
The White African
By
Ross Dix-Peek
Over the great ocean seas
My ancestors did choose to flee,
Europe’s rumblings and poverty,
And to “Darkest Africa” did journey
It was many, many years past,
When Queen Vic’ was still at the mast,
When my forebears resolute did come,
To live beneath the great African sun
Since has Mother Africa suckled our young
To us her lullabies and sweet songs sung,
And all this time ‘neath her fiery mantle
Did my people in Africa live, toil and battle
Africa is not for the mild and the meek,
It's no place at all for the feeble and the weak,
And the days oft be savage and so very long,
Yes, it's only for the brave and the very strong
Many generations did pass, and many years shorn,
Before I too upon African soil was born,
Like my fathers’ before, a White African,
Created and cast beneath her scorching sun
And although I have since her rugged shores left,
My soul to Mother Africa’s bosom will forever be cleft,
And though I may miss the tight embrace of an African sun,
It matters not, for I will forever be a White African!
poem by Ross DixPeek
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Mama Africa II.
Love and peace to you from the mind of the African,
For Mama Africa is here to stay;
And of the great love from the muse of Africa,
So pay us a visit to see what we are made of.
Mama Africa will great you with the muse of all the animals,
And like the heat of the sun that blesses us all day long;
But in Africa with hope to teach many with our culture.
The care of Mother Africa is here for you,
For Mama Africa will care for you whenever you do visit us;
Because we have a lot to share with the whole world!
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Great Grandmother
great grandmother
grandmother's mother
she walked through my life
like red roses, that dropp over one's path
roses that hold us back to savour
the meaning cast between
two melancholic lines of a poem
great grandmother
grandmother's mother
she walked through my life
so sparingly, always with the
fervent wish to build a bridge to my life
you know it because she always walked
away with tears glistening in her eyes
tears glistening in her eyes
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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Oh Africa my Africa
Oh Africa my Africa land of diamonds. Oh africa my Africa land of great kings Shaka, Haile Silasi, mandela to name a few. Oh mother Africa my Africa rich in gold.oh Africa my africa full of beautful women. Yes africa my africa land of real nature.
poem by George mwandu
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Don't Forget who is your Father
God is Great
He created you and me so ladies and gentleman
he is the only person to praise and pray
Cause some of us we pray Alan people you pray him
who is him God is the one who created us
so guys help me to Thank him every time i'm sick i call him cause
he is the hiller the killer of diseases in the world
Help me to sing.
How great is our God sing with me how great is our God
all we sing is how great is our God age to age praise his
Great great great great great
great great great great great great great
great great great great great great great
great great great great great great great great great great great
GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD..
Thank you Help me pliz.
poem by Ruvimbo Daisy Matsika
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African Mama
African Mama as she struts down the catwalk
African mama with that multi-colored headdress
Vuluptuous woman
Independant woman
A woman of style
Africa's pride
Not fasion model's skinny legs
and flat bottom
Not half-shrunk cloth over disapearing waistline
Curves of Africa
Beauty of Africa
She is unconventional
Under-rated
Rich Beauty
Shocked faces stare as she transforms the stage
with her multi-faceted elagance
with her charm
and many colours
She is proud to be a woman
She she is mother
she is daughter
she will one day be grandmother telling stories around fireplaces
Her beauty is more than magazines
more than clothing
Her beauty is in who she is
In her free spirit
In her deep soul
In her rhythem
And in her heritage
She is Mama Africa
A woman of beauty
poem by Jessica Nobubele Frame
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Africa of My Dream
Africa, my Africa of my dream
Here is where I want to be
And here I have always been,
At my end, here is where I want to sleep.
Africa, I have been away for too long
Please don't cry for me my mother
Twenty years is a long time to be
Away from home,
But I am still here, my one home
My Africa, my Africa of my dream
Many are leaving, leaving for America,
But I am still here and here
Is where I will always be,
My Africa is my America.
We are working towards that,
A better Africa, a great Africa!
This is Africa of my dream,
My Africa is my America.
poem by Efe Benjamin
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Request to a Year
If the year is meditating a suitable gift,
I should like it to be the attitude
of my great- great- grandmother,
legendary devotee of the arts,
who having eight children
and little opportunity for painting pictures,
sat one day on a high rock
beside a river in Switzerland
and from a difficult distance viewed
her second son, balanced on a small ice flow,drift down the current toward a waterfall
that struck rock bottom eighty feet below,
while her second daughter, impeded,
no doubt, by the petticoats of the day,
stretched out a last-hope alpenstock
(which luckily later caught him on his way).
Nothing, it was evident, could be done;
And with the artist's isolating eye
My great-great-grandmother hastily sketched the scene.
The sketch survives to prove the story by.
Year, if you have no Mother's day present planned,
Reach back and bring me the firmness of her hand.
poem by Judith Wright
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African Child
AFRICA CHILD
Africa child a leader in the world
Africa child you grow so tender
In the two hands of your mother
Into a matured man to move the world
You really sucked the milk
Of your Africa mother with love, strong ness, neatness and greatness.
You were seen when little like a dull person but proved them all wrong.
Oh! Child you greatly moved the world
By showing your Africa ness in- you through the power
A leader in the world you are
I believe other continent
Will see your glittering black with a very good respect and integrity.
Child, I greet you with respect
‘Cos you are the colour that spark
With the whiteness of your eyes and teeth comes out to
Move very well with your minds
And soul to think so great.
I put on you the highest rank
In the world because you deserve
To be there, child! (c)
poem by Chinwendu Ibeh
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Africa and Africa’s
Have seen little of history unfold
I know that one thing will always be
Africa will be,
But what is Africa’s may never be
White man came
Green lands began to dry
So did rivers and streams
Even oceans and seas
Whatever the white man sees
Seems to vanish from Africa
Like dews do in his singeing summers
When he sees peace… there! Gone
The white man said he’d in Africa invested
In actual sense he had Africa infested
Looting without shame
Claiming England is Object; Africa its subject
There was gold, grandpa says
We fight over our own
Lacerate throats and disembowel ours
Man in white fuels it dressed in black
We choose our way
Dos, don’ts, and embargoes stay
When we invent, they endear us
Purporting supervision, yet looting
What is Africa’s one day will be
And shall remain African and Africa’s
What should unite Africa is Africa’s
It will never split Africa into Africas
poem by David Munene wa Kimberly
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Grandmother Told Me So
The declaration has been spoken,
For Grandmother told me so.
The darkeys have got their fetlocks broken,
For Grandmother told me so.
Oh, won't they have a lot of iron on hand!
And when the news travels,
Oh, won't it be grand!
'Twill sweep like a sugarcane over the land,
For Grandmother told me so.
American Eagle! hysterical bird!
Oh, flap your wing and crow!
The slaves are embellished--yes, that's the word,
For Grandmother told me so!
There's curious times in that ur section,
For Grandmother told me so.
They think they will have a resurrection,
For Grandmother told me so.
The penholders raving like persons insane --
The darkeys in exodus, raising cane,
And singing like martingales after a rain,
For Grandmother told me so.
But President Abe forgot Kentucky,
For Grandmother told me so.
And Geneses, too -- and that's unlucky,
For Grandmother told me so.
Malicious champagne will be open'd in vain,
Until we shall break the last ox-yoke and chain --
Till through the Benighted States freedom shall reign,
For Grandmother told me so.
poem by Henry Clay Work
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I see Africa
When i stand afar i see
nearer than ever
When i echo my fear
makes them bold
My race make me
speak in subdue, yet
i am proud to call
Africa my Africa
Eventhrough untied state
of Africa refuse to see
nearer than ever,
i still believe Africa is my
Africa no-matter what.
Oh great Marcus Garvey
my Africa brother, surely
Africa will remain Africa till the world dying days.
poem by Senator alufalism
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The Anglo Boer war
When that wimp of a Englishman
called Cecil John Rhodes
decided that he wanted gold,
that the diamonds in his pockets
was not enough
he wanted to see that British Union Jack flutter,
over the whole of Southern Africa
to his queen he went
to enchant her patriotic soul
to claim the Orange Free State
and Transvaal Republics as British territories
to sent three thousand
Christian farmers to their deaths,
to burn farmsteads down to the ground,
to throw salt in the lands,
to slaughter every animal there,
to murder twenty thousand women
and children
in concentration camps
and to loose twenty eight thousand
of the queen’s own as killed, as dead
shot through the heart, shot through the head.
[Note: My own great grandmother died in a British concentration camp and my great grandfather was sent by the British to St. Helena as a prisoner of war and as a result of this, my grandfather grew up in a orphanage.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Question Me Now, My Children
Question Me Now, My children
Ask questions of me, my children
For time has a way…
Of slipping through fingers
Like reapers through hay
Your heritage is a treasure
That one day you’ll have need
Questions in need of answers
And no answers to heed
Was your great grandfather
A brown-eyed lad
Was your great grandmother
Perhaps a little bit mad
Ask about your ancestry
So interesting and rich
Was great aunt Sarah just an ol’ maid…
Or was she really a witch
How did they live the course of their day
And how the difference from yours
You live in a city, in a modern way
Perhaps they lived in the moors
How did your father meet your mother
What was their courtship like
And did grandmaw, elope with grandpaw
Did cousin Jenny marry up with uncle Mike
Did great-great grandmaw come from Ireland
Was her name “Whalen” changed from “Whelan”
By careless and lazy immigration officials
At a bustling and confusing, Ellis Island
Did these people bite their fingernails
Have a wart on their nose
Have children die prematurely
Enjoy happiness, suffer woe
Question me now, my children
For I get older, soon will come my time to go
And ‘twill be too late and ‘sadly twill be your fate
Of your rich heritage to ne’er know
Ask questions of me, my children
Before time takes me to task
Else when and what you wish to know
There will no one to ask
poem by David Whalen
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From pools of blood
From pools of blood bushes, trees
and aloes grow in the veldt
where British soldiers
fired on my countrymen
and some bayoneted them.
Concentration camps where twenty thousand
women and children died without dignity
at the hand of foreigners,
who claimed to be fellow Christians
are now covered with grass
and that past are being blotted out
as if the misery, the indignity,
the mass murder
never happened
and great Queen Victoria
is still dignified
and still I hold Great Britain responsible
for the murder of my great grand mother,
for the destruction
of my great grand father’s farm,
for the seizure
of my other great grand father’s property,
for sending him to St. Helena
as a prisoner of war,
for invading my country
for making profit from the minerals
and the quarter Scotsman in me
together with my three quarters Afrikaner parts
forever wants to be free
from the enslavement
which that foreign nation brought.
[Note: My own great grandmother died in a British concentration camp and my great grandfather was sent by the British to St. Helena as a prisoner of war and as a result of this, my grandfather(Gert Strydom) grew up in a orphanage.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Giant of Africa
Blessed thy be
among the contries
so great and powerful
rich in culture
and natural endowment
truly, you are the giant of Africa
Hm! giant of Africa
you should be ashamed
for been called the giant of Africa
Isn't our flag green white green?
while green stand for food
and white for peace?
but now, green stand for famine
and white for war
Giant of Africa
heh heh heh
visa now becomes your lord
the land where
nigerian love to live
still, the tomtom of revolution
beats in our heart
for our ancestor to judge
both the good and the evil.
poem by Mimiko moruf oluwakayode
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To Doris
She said I come from a land flanked by the warmer seas
A flat brown land that stretch for miles with hardly any trees
In my dreams I see the big game parks and the open plains I see
'Oh' Africa my Africa I hear you calling me.
I hear the male lion cough and roar and the wild hyena scream
And the Natives dance before my eyes so real to me they seem
I hear them singing in the night and their drumming I too hear
And Africa close to my heart though miles away from here.
Doris accent is a give away as accents often are
You'd know that to get to this great Land that she's had to travel far
Her lovely South African accent one never should mistake
The migrant may live far from home but ties that bind are hard to break.
A farmer's daughter from South Africa her life story ought be told
A woman close to eighty years though she doesn't look that old
A teenager in the thirties the hard life she has been through
Her only brother a prisoner of war in Europe in world war two.
Her ill mother convinced her son had died lost the will to live on
And he returned home to the tragic news that his mum was dead and gone
There's sorrow blood and tears in war and tragedy as well
And for mums with sons on battlefields life must be living hell.
She raised five sons in South Africa and one died at twenty five
Brain damaged by measles as a child she helped him to survive
And Doris with great sadness says that her son's life was far too brief
There's ups and downs in life she says and there's happiness and grief.
With her son and daughter in law she lives east of Melbourne now by road off 'One Tree Hill'
A woman from a far Country and suppose she always will
Feel homesick for her home Country, I love Australia she say
But my homeland is South Africa the brown Land far away.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Shaka The Zulu
Here he comes with his muscular
body, in his hands lay the symbol
of Africa the symbol that have sent
many great warriors six feet beneath.
The sound of his voice bring silence
among the bird of the sky.
Shaka the son of Zulu he believe that he
is a true son of Africa.In the battle field
with the great symbol of Africa in his hands
he believe that nobody can defeat him, his
peer believe that he is a god among the
living creature.
Shaka the Zulu he believe in the black power
with iron hands he rule the people of Zulu with
the help of the witch doctors he conquer the
Africa.The name Shaka bring fear in the camp
of the white.
poem by Enyinwa Okechukwu Enyinwa
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