"WAR CHILD"

"Children should be going to school, not fighting in battles, because they will still lose their life even if they survive."
From the book of "war child" by Emmanuel Jal
Emmanuel's charity Gua Africa (Gua meaning power in Arabic and peace in his native tongue Nuer) supports survivors of war from Sudan and Rwanda who are in high schools and universities. These are the people who will rebuild their countries in the future. Gua Africa also sponsors children at primary school in Nairobi slum and hope to find support for more pupils. Emmanuel's dream is to build a school in Leer in honor of the woman who rescued him, Wmma Mccune.
There he will be able to give the children from his home what he was given. "education and freedom"

www.guaafrica.org or www.warchildmovie.com

A Young Man On A Mission

"Left home at the age of seven/one year later I'm carryin' an Ak-47." For hip hop artist Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier in Sudan's brutal civil war, these lyrics are hardly empty posturing. They are the bitter reality of a young man who was "forced to sin" but determined to "never give up and never give in." Today, wounded but still hopeful, he fights a new battle: bringing peace to his beloved Sudan and building schools in Africa. This time, his weapon is a microphone. See why audiences from New York to Berlin to London rave about the award-winning film, War Child, and have embraced the hip-hop artist with a terrifying past and a gentle soul. Interspersing original interviews, live concerts, and rare footage of Jal as a seven year-old boy, War Child will make viewers cry, laugh, dance, and celebrate the power of hope.

I want out!

the dancer is you in the Savanna rains
When you ask the bus to go on forever
and
the looking glass is you when
definitely
Yu ask my buttocks of images in paraffin
roaring burning black in haephestus' furnace
the days are calabashes of dead palm wine
that blossom into red blood in the black ambulance
yu say your life is my presence
turned into destitute vocabulary

but I forget
Joan of Arc was White
Very White the paper of hell's menus blistered
and scalded my Steve Biko fingertips
When I looked back
the wayward bus was right in front of me
Its single tyre Cyclop's smarting eye

When they began talking of digris

She looked at me at my empty silence
but you write write poems
how come you got no degrees?

the stamps in this detention mind
turn livid like a charon capsizing in Urine
the smudges on my face is debating faeces
the wormz these my fingers are typewriter keys
the Cry in the raining nyt trying
trying
to mangle the english language

I
forget
my dreadline is close
I have taken my poems
I'll get the books when I
bring your money
the typewriter was neva mine

When the becomes so real
and the poem refuses to end
enslaving to write all hours
I
know longer have tears to cry
remember
when I insisted on paying the bill
and yu knew I had no monies
and stared as I ate piles and miles of
spaghetti bread yu didnt know
that was my first meal in 4 days I
never said fasting was voluntary
Out the Savanna music kinged
for appearance's sake
lets hold hands

between pages of blazing gasps
your thighs when they crush me are delirium bantustans
and the flags
words from Senghor silences the Wind!

The Winter moon imprisons girls
poetessez with thighs like akhmatova
and
!
blood red blobs drop on this poem

Im not trying to emphaSIZE!
the blooddrops in my plate
Scarlet a red soup of gritty tears
gravel of brain sawdust
on the drill of time(s)
answer
What race was scipio africanus

the rains in the Savanna dance you
definitely.


Phillip Zhuwao

this morning nigger

The days have been like this
these past 4 days

I've been trying to sell
my 2 copies of New Coin for few coins
Veldfire ravage evicts
mice hares locusts and her beauty to the hunter
to believe
I've walked to town and back
to try and secure that University scholarship

It's vain and vulnerable
achille's heel my roofs crush me
over the hills the beautiful Vumba mountains
the grassy drakensberg the sand-particled kalahari
my biological homeland Barotseland
Lewanika's eye and my true identity

My heart is now a bomb
the dish of water that pilate washed hands

Indians smoke peace pipe
When I'm reading Oom Smut's autobiography

We can sit in this sun
or beneath it

God's footstools
So long as
I have a single beer

When she crossed her legs on Farewell
She mentioned Upsaala Heidelberg
Then british airways, She was gone.

Baring the wolf's ivory fangs
trying to blaspheme if God slept at all
Wondering why poetry is personal
Why I'm not yet dead the cat's whisker twitched
SHIT!
Again the blood and snot clotted in my nostrils
to the shouting outside

this dark little room where
the unmattressed bed
the tens and tens of books
the oversized jacket behind the door
the holed shoes
are POETRY themselves.

Phillip Zhuwao

Nigeria baby poison deaths rise


The death toll from a contaminated baby medicine sold in Nigeria has risen from 34 - recorded in early December - to 84, the health ministry has said.
There have been 111 reported cases of children who have fallen ill after being given teething syrup "My Pikin".
The poisonous syrup was discovered last November when babies began dying of organ failure across the country.
Authorities have called on private pharmacies to turn over stocks of the paracetamol-based syrup to regulators.
The Nigerian-made mixture was found to contain engine coolant.

Government will leave no stone unturned to.. ensure that such unfortunate incidents do not occur again
Babatunde Osotimehin
Nigeria's health minister
The National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (Nafdac) shut down the Lagos-based manufacturer and the main supplier of the medicine last year.
Nafdac has also appealed to parents to not treat their children with any type of teething syrup until it can find all the remaining stocks.
The dead children are aged between two and seven, Health Minister Babatunde Osotimehin said.
"Government will leave no stone unturned to find answers to the many questions being asked by Nigerians and also ensure that such unfortunate incidents do not occur again," he said.
The name My Pikin means my baby in Nigerian pidgin.

Gunmen free Nigerian boy of nine

Gangs of jobless youth make money from kidnapping and extortion
A nine-year-old boy kidnapped by a gang in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta has been released.
His 11-year-old sister was shot dead trying to protect him as they walked to school in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, last week.
It is understood no ransom was paid to the kidnappers even though his father is an employee of Royal Dutch Shell.
Kidnapping of oil company employees by gangs of armed men is on the increase in the Niger Delta.
Emmanuel Awonusi is reported to have been released unharmed.

Militant groups have been kidnapping oil workers and their families for many years in the Niger Delta.
They say they are trying to force a fairer distribution of wealth from Nigeria's oil, but jobless young men make money from extortion, kidnapping and oil theft.
The lucrative kidnapping business has attracted copy-cat gangs, analysts say.
Oil companies always deny paying ransoms but it is believed to be a common practice.

cos you listen

THERE WOULD BE A DAY
OR THAT DAY
I WOULD BE IN
FOR ALL OF YOUR WRITES
FOR ALL OF YOUR HEARTS

THAT DAY FOR SURE
I WOULD BE THAT ONE
THAT ONE
Of....
"GLI GLI"

Don't forget in those bad news my proud poet
my proud dancer of life

Dancer of words
Dancer in this world
With all bodies
Whose could listen
the litlle song of the HEART BIT


by
agnes dru

Three deny SA reggae icon murder

Lucky Dube
Lucky Dube was an internationally recognised reggae star
Three men have denied at the high court in Johannesburg murdering the internationally-acclaimed South African reggae star Lucky Dube.

Julius Xowa, Sfiso Mhlanga and Thabiso Maroping also deny unlawful possession of firearms and attempted hijacking.

The shooting of the 43-year-old musician outside his brother's house in Johannesburg in October 2007 shocked the country.

Lucky Dube's family and friends were in court for the opening of the trial.
The accused - all in their early 30s - were denied bail when they appeared in court in November last year.

It emerged at the time that one of the suspects had been out on bail on a separate charge when he allegedly took part in the murder of the reggae star.

This angered opposition parties and members of the public who questioned the country's judicial system.

But police were praised for making quick arrests.

Death penalty calls

Four suspects were initially taken into custody, but one was later released under the instruction of the directorate of public prosecutions.

Lucky Dube was shot dead in front of his son and daughter in Rosettenville, a southern suburb of downtown Johannesburg.

The killing led to renewed domestic calls for the restoration of the death penalty in a bid to stem one of the world's highest murder rates.

The BBC's Mpho Lakaje in Johannesburg says South Africa's international image has been tarnished by its alarming crime levels.

Nearly 19,000 people were murdered last year, according to official statistics.

Millions of visitors are expected for next year's football world cup.

Lucky Dube, who recorded in Zulu, English and Afrikaans, began his career by singing mbaqanga (traditional Zulu) music and recorded his first album with the Super Soul band in 1982.

He later moved into reggae, producing Rastas Never Die, which was banned by the apartheid government.

His albums Slave, Prisoner and Together As One won him global recognition.

The trial is expected to last about a month.

LAGOS

upon two and three, eight and twenty
we converge inside the vehicle
we hustle and huddle inside
all mingling like baked cake
inside the oven
“enter quick before the bus leave us here joo”

I remember that chant from the door man
calling bus stops, at the same time
attends to passengers aboard
“abeg owe yur change o”
but sometimes some passengers want to
be tuff with the conductor,
“madam I go join you wit dis boy, bcos yu ear me
day shout owe yur change before yu enter”

MOLUWE I will not forget
yellow and black stripe on the body
talking about body, AGBERO boys standing at every
bus stop for their daily payment
“oya, owo chairman, owo boys, owo ile,
owo morning, owo afternoon, owo evening”
but that is not only the payment for the day
what about oga olopa salary.

Under the hot sun little children
pass by with their tray
“omo elepa please sell five niara grand nut for me
and please make it well o, let me test it first”
Lagos city, I hail thee
I am proud to be one of your soul entity.

Vincent

Poetry Lamentation

As part of our monthly exhibition of Poetry Lamentation we\'ve showcased three artist poems.
William blake(1989) and Al young (1938). both of them are great poets. they are in front row of black emancipation in African-American and the world.
the ANTHOLOGY OF A BLACK MANS SPEECH has greatly impact a lot in the new generation writing and has a rice cultural heritage that we as blacks can trace our history and background to our ancestors.

we are using these medium to acknowledge black writers whose poems are device for addressing society issues for blacks youth all over the world. the slavery and redemption of our time. also young writers who are aspiring to transcend their work to the horizon.

ANTHOLOGY OF A BLACK MANS SPEECH

I AM BLACK, AFRICA I AM BLACK MAN

There I was, searing aloof the roof top
gaging myself abot in front of a steal pot
amicably I wallowed and drain into a wretch tree fall
fading into the winds till night stood tall
abase by the rod, I danced to posture
poor like waisted green who'se lost his future

I am black, Africa I am black man

from dust I became
to him I retain
galloping from hills to heed
from trees to reed
I have seen weapon ablaze
to segregate men till date

I am black, Africa I am black man

with passion knowing me not to hold
I feel unjust to my unborn too bold
oh yes! I gazed in front of the window
seeing how cold it is to be a widow
who fall shout and cut
the prime of her throat

I am black, Africa I am black man

soldiers matching by
parading the ground till die
yet no one ears my voice
echoing, trenching its noise
lingering thru the front door
I've conceived in my conscience before

I am black, Africa I am black man

I won't stop until these soar is ill
not on the surface, but inside the hearts I will ill
until the street is turned with justice
and peace abide in every faces
I won't stop until the name of my children
will be sang on every lip, oh yes! till then

I am black, African I am black man

Africa is pose to be degrading
A nonconstructive human beings
who live with other animals
and eat from like mammals
I won't negate my people and become
like those who soled me for coin
who flea because they are weak
blind folded with the trick

I am black, Africa I am black man

I am black man and will always be
a color am so proud of
I am who I am a black man
the glowing shadow that sprout thru the nite
by sun set I shield to be bright
I am black am to me don't change that
I am who I am if you could see

I am black, Africa I am black man

Vincent

"The Little Black Boy"

MY mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O, my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissèd me,
And, pointing to the East, began to say:
'Look at the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.
'And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
'For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish; we shall hear His voice,
Saying, "Come out from the grove, my love and care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice."'
Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me,
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.

William Blake

From Songs of Innocence (1789)

Loneliness

the poet is the dreamer.
He dreams that the c lock stops
& 100 angels wandering wild
drift into his chamber
where nothing has been settled

should he got himself photographed
seated next to a mountain
like chairman Mao
the real sun flashing golden
off his real eyes
like the light off stones
by ocean?

Give me your perfect hand
& touch me simply with a word,
one distillation of forever

Should he put his white tie on
with his black shirt
& pass himself off as a docile gangster
,for the very last time?

The poet dream is real
down to the very last silver bullet

Should he slip again to Funland
in the city & throw dimes down holes
to watch hungry women flicker
one hair at a time
in kodacolor
from sad civilized boxers?

Should he practice magic
on politicians &
and crack their necks
in a laughing fit?

The poet is the dreamer.
He dreams babies asleep in wombs
& count the waisted sighs
lost in a flake of dusty semen
on a living thigh

Should he dream the end of an order,
the abolition of the slave trade,
the restoration to life
of dead millions
filing daily past time clocks
dutifully gorging themselves
on self-hatred & emptiness?

Should he even dream
an end to loneliness,
the illusion that
we can do without
& have no need
of one another?

It is true that he needs you,
I need you,
I need your pain & magic,
I need you more than ever
in every form & attitude-
gesturing with a rifle in your hand
starving in some earthly sector
or poised in some heavenly meditation
listening to the wind
with the third ear
or staring in forever
with the ever-watchful third eye,
you are needed

The poet is the dreamer &
the poet is himself the dream
&in this dream
he shares your presence

should he smash down walls
& expose the ignorance
beneath our lying nonsense?

No! No!
The gunshots he fires
up in the silent air
is to awaken.....

AL YOUNG (1939)

FREE THINKING

say it,
prove it,
be it,
show it,
talk it,
walk it,
be it,
follow it,
fight for it,
pray with it,
you are what you could ever imagine of.

FREE THINKING

hate it or love it

Some people derive joy conceiving evil and hate in their heart. They even nurture it as if they've won a lottery ticket. They can even go the extend of wagging their mouth behind you and call you names and stuff just to paint their dirty jobs and show how coward they are. But they are afraid to say it in front of you, cos they know, they are the real notorious to them self. A hypocrite industry that is what they are. Low entities that they cannot be on their seat and be content with who they ARE.
I don't care who you are or what you say are. or what they call you. To me, you are just a figure of your own pocket, if your prowlers are getting into you and you think you can't keep your short gun or pipe where it should be, please freely donate it to a science lab, let them help you find a solution or make research on what you will do with it.
offense to any body, but I feel I don't owe any body an apology or whatsoever. it just a piece of my mind. and I have to let go, and let the air take it far away.
I will be, cos in Him, with Him and through Him I am able to breath and live through the next day. That's all I need as a human. I can't spend my time thinking of backward individuals who care less for other people, but them self or the benefit they want. I don't care of who say, him say, she say or who say so.
But this is my pray for you. Don't think I will not keep you in my treasure boxes or care for you. Your respect I will always keep and acknowledge, your boldness and zeal I admire.
Blessings and peace will continue to find you, favors will always drench your roof and never leaves your shadow.

Vincent....

Dr Martin Luther King Jr

So many times we've been battered and lingered under the influence of those entities who governs us. We have been scourged and denied of lively hood. We are taking for granted and been connoted falsely by leather weapon and metal steels. There are those who believes a black man and white man are differ, that they cannot work on the same path of daylight. Those who sets ambush and walk through the darkest night, plotting and pro founding racialism. “We say to them that it is time for all men in the world to unite and liberate our society from the tranquility and purgatory that is ever flooding in the hearts of men.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr
“Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to leave together in peace and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. I refuse to accept the views that mankind is also tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant”

The light of freedom will come as the dawn of a new day envelope and shines from the East and dwell in the North. “As men will walk through the streets with one voice singing Hymns and shouting these words; this is the day we've been waiting for”. Oh yes! Let it be said that in our time we have conquered even in tribulation. To those who plays the game of racial discrimination and violate humans rights because of its skin type; you will trample to the ground like leaf cast off from its stem. You will perish and bleed with maggot.

Vincent

Anger at priest kidnap in Nigeria

Niger Delta militants
There are many gangs in the Niger Delta involved in kidnapping

The Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria has condemned the kidnapping of a missionary in the oil-producing south.

The Archbishop of Abuja, Most Rev John Onaiyekan, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said the kidnappers had made a "grave mistake".

Father Pius Kii was seized by unidentified gunmen from the steps of his church in Port Harcourt on Sunday.

Many gangs in the Niger Delta make money from kidnapping, extortion and gun running.

Unconfirmed reports from Church sources said militants had demanded a $20,000 (£14,000) ransom for Father Kii.

'Fear God'

"If they can kidnap a priest, then really no-one is safe," Archbishop Onaiyekan said.

"They should realise they have made a grave mistake, fear God and release him."

Father Kii is a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul, a Roman Catholic missionary organisation.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the most visible militant group, has not commented on the kidnap.

The group has been kidnapping oil workers since 2006. In the past they have "rescued" non-oil worker hostages from other gangs.

Violence has cut oil production in the Niger Delta by about a fifth.
source BBC NEWS/AFRICA/NIGERIA

sole survivor

I will climb the mountain high
I will open my wings and soar to the sky
I will soar like the birds in the sky
Free and pure like mother earth
I will touch the stars with faith
break down worries and challenges
cos I'm the GREATEST
I am not the best among the rest
I am your friend when no one
call you friend
I am the night and day
I am life today

Black Washington looks to Obama

On his desk beside the nameboard that tells you he is director of marching bands at Howard University in Washington DC, John Newson keeps a miniature bale of cotton.
"Washington DC - a ruling elite, within a mainly African-American population"
When he lifts it and turns it in his hands his eyes take on a curiously distant quality and stories of this country's divided past come tumbling out.


He is a dignified, professorial figure these days, but he can remember the old times in rural Louisiana when he was put out of school three hours before the local white kids and sent to the local plantation fields to chop cotton - back-breaking work for a little boy in the boiling heat of the Southern summer.
He remembers too the local laws about "eye-balling" - no black man or woman dared to risk making eye contact with any of the white folks in the streets of their little town.
You looked down, or looked away, or you got a ticket and a fine.

Mr Newson's band, from the college they call "The Black Harvard", will be marching in the inaugural parade in the heart of their home city - Howard is just a few blocks across town from the White House.
It is a small story of change in a country which has changed enormously since little John Newson was sent out into the cottonfields of Louisiana all those years ago.

He is moved at the idea of a black man taking power in the White House, and not just for what it says about the long road African-Americans have travelled since he baled cotton when he should have been sitting in class or playing with his friends.

BLACK STREETS
Washington DC is sometimes called Chocolate City, and it is a curiously divided place."America's not exactly accepting us with open arms now just by the election of a black man as president"
Corey Crane
Tour operator
The tiny governing elite - which tends to live and work in the glittering centre - is surrounded by seas of largely black streets.

Mr Newson wonders if Barack Obama might be the man to bring together those two disparate identities sharing the same space.
After all, he commands the ruling elite now, and yet he can still talk comfortably with the black street.
Not that Mr Newson believes the election of Mr Obama means an end to the African-American journey. To illustrate his point he told me this story about what happened when he and his wife took three of their grandchildren back to a four-star hotel in Louisiana a few years ago to show them the Old South in which they had grown up.

"My wife and the three grandkids went to the swimming pool and on two occasions when they got in, all the white folks who were swimming got out and left," he told me.
"My wife even stayed in the water for nearly two hours to see if they would come back - and they didn't."
As Mr Newson said, Barack Obama's election is a moment of symbolism and he will have huge powers - but he cannot make people stay in swimming pools together.

America - and the South in particular - still have some changing to do.

poetry lamentation

Poetry Lamentation is a monthly activity of poetry and writing. Starting 31st of this month with on line poetries of deferents poets and writers alike. It is a unite to converge both old and young writers and those who are aspiring and willing to embraces the art. We will also be showcasing their work, and as well deferent artiste and exhibitions.

PIOUS MIND

Inflation drench on her sanctuary
Debating with her memory
Her just will flicked in sanity
Remembered by the call of poverty
Her servants scout for treasures
Invading homes and looting peoples measures
But her future fade in coldness
Battered with groans of bitterness

Tomorrow awaits him heaven
Even calling him as the chosen
But the maim he conceive
Torment the vision her perceive
Caused is upon his friends he unite
Attrition with the church he built to confine

With the breath of a new dawn
Clinching hearts like new born
Our faces raised to the platform of life
Transcending the gospel alive
Such is nigh before cry
Because justice is bitter and dry

We sick no just in it
We cannot tell the mystery beneath
But laugh when success
Smiles upon our door step

Now evening has come
Dark as the undertaker of random
Swaying shadow amidst concubines
Dragging furry and weariness to justify it wine
As dark taker of its hour
So its weakness imply

Before dawn pervade its place
Looming with the lost that couldn't be trace
Darkness has flea to the mountain
Planting its seeds to be something

This is the streets of todays history
Thus cause and blame wag our memory
Caged our efforts to be limited
Instead to be united

That sweet memory of genesis
Cannot be rephrase in our analysis
It cannot be refresh in our memory........
It cannot be refresh in our memory........