Page 5 of Collected Poems

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my Explorer-Self stood a little

distant but somewhat fulfilled; behind

him a long misty quest: unanswered

questions put to sleep needing

no longer to be raised. Enough

in that trapped silence of a freak

dawn to come face-to-face suddenly

with a body I didn't even know

I lost.

Agostinho Neto

Neto, were you no more

Than the middle one favored by fortune

In children's riddle; Kwame

Striding ahead to accost

Demons; behind you a laggard third

As yet unnamed, of twisted fingers?

No! Your secure strides

Were hard earned. Your feet

Learned their fierce balance

In violent slopes of humiliation;

Your delicate hands, patiently

Groomed for finest incisions,

Were commandeered brusquely to kill,

Your melodious voice to battle cry.

Perhaps your family and friends

Knew a merry flash cracking the gloom

We see in pictures but I prefer

And will keep the darker legend.

For I have seen how

Half a millennium of alien rape

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