Page 10 of Collected Poems
Till crashing facedown in a million fragments
It was floated gleefully away
To cold shores—cartographers alone
Marking the coastline
Of that forgotten massive stance.
In our time it came again
In pain and acrid smell
Of powder. And furious wreckers
Emboldened by half a millennium
Of conquest, battening
On new oil dividends, are now
At its black throat squeezing
Blood and lymph down to
Its hands and feet
Bloated by quashiokor.
Must Africa have
To come a third time?
An “If” of History
Just think, had Hitler won
his war the mess our history
books would be today. The Americans
flushed by verdict of victory
hanged a Japanese commander for
war crimes. A generation later
an itching finger pokes their ribs:
We've got to hang
our Westmoreland
for bloodier crimes
in Viet Nam!
But everyone by now must
