Sister Sarah BaartmanAnd Other Poems By Chidi Anthony Opara

Sister Sarah Baartman

Endowed
With the endowment
Of African womanhood,
Sister Sarah Baartman
Endured childhood vicissitudes.
She found love,
But her love was murdered by racism.

Racism
Wrote an agreement she could not read
And forced her thumbprint thereon,
And shipped her
To the circuses of Europe.

Debasement
Drenched African womanhood
In the debased circuses of Europe,
Racism baptized Sister Sarah Baartman
The Hottentot Venus.

Death brought no rest,

Racism
Hacked her dead body
And displayed her body parts
In a museum

In the land of Napoleon.

Rest now
Sister Sarah Baartman.
Rest now
That you have been buried
In the land of your birth.
Rest now
Sister Sarah Baartman.

Blood Of The Natives

The sullen sky
Spat,
Fire rained
Onto the land of Baga.

Desolation,
Coven of carnivores.
Burned bodies
Begged to be buried.

Blood of the natives

Flowed
Through their farmlands,
Through their fish farms,
Through the domains of their deities.

The scanty survivors of Baga

Like the scanty survivors of Odi

Are now refugees.

Mouthpieces of officialdom
Mount
The decrepit dais,
Mouthing sympathies.

Resurrection Resonates
Dead
Or
Half-dead?
Many minds inquire.

Dead!
The choristers chorus.
Faith in resurrection recedes,
Yet
Resurrection resonates.

Thou art made of earth

To earth thou must return
Thus saith the Lord.
Yet
Resurrection resonates.

The law of the Lord

Languishes

In the prison of orthodoxy.

Resurrection resonates.

The Smoke That Must Be White

Shhh.
Silence.
The red robed supplicants
Are sequestered
Inside the Sistine.

They speak
In silent supplications
To the spirits
To pronounce a Pontiff.

The stewards are set

To send the smoke.
The smoke
That must be white.

Two-Pronged Papacy
With stones
From the shore
Of the holy sea,
Stones centuries old,
Holy seers stoned us.
Stunned,
We starred

At an approaching
Two-pronged papacy.

A shrinked papa
Will shield
A shinny papa
From the paparazzi.

From the bags of Borgia

Holy seers select props
To play parts
In the two-pronged papacy
Approaching.

At the shore
Of the holy sea
Absurdities will abound.
Holy seers
Will play unholy parts
And veneers
Of veneration will vanish.