The Darkness

Outrage without action accomplishes nothing.

 I exist as an onlooker,

Going through the motions of my daily life.

 

Elsewhere, darkness reigns supreme.

Messengers of evil fly through the desert,

Fueled by the greed of a distant evil,

Obliterating all in their path.

The Dark Continent cries out for help,

Yet no one answers.

Meaningless cries of outrage echo over a heartless world.

The echo grows louder, still we ignore.

When action doesn’t follow,

Nothing is accomplished.

The darkness consumes the Continent,

Next the world.

 

The death knell rises to an earsplitting volume.

How long can it be ignored?

Reviews

[erased]

Africa is under the reign of insatiable avarice and all pervasive ignorance. Every year millions are spent on summits and conferences meant for discussing the dark continent's problems that is progressively sinking into the mire of conflicts and disease.

Your poem is a mind blowing commentry on the state of affairs. It is deeply touching and impressive.

[R J Askew]

I know the feeling. Yet there was a story from Tanzania recently about extreme violence towards albinos in that country where they are set upon, maimed, butchered, killed because -- I jest not -- their body parts and blood are highly prized by witchdoctors. Evidently, Tanzanian witchdoctors are among the best in the continent. This is nothing to do with drought or flood, but is plain barbarity of a most evil and horrible kind. I also learnt today that the productivity of African farmers is about 25 pct of their counterpart in Asia. I then think of the likes of Mugabe. And Kenya is on the brink again. Unless a justice commission can resolve who to punish for the outbreak of tribal warfare 18 months ago, they may be at it again before this month is out. Meanwhile El Nino threatens havoc. One African state considered recently contracting out its economy to Executive Outcomes, a sort of mercenary outfit. But the biggest feature in Africa at the moment is China. China buys this and that. They then build roads but only from the this to the that, so they can get the minerals and oil out. China will own all the bits of Africa worth owning in a decade.