CONGO
10 September 2020, a Belgian court rules that Belgium should return to his family, Patrice Lumumba's remains- a tooth, the rest having been dissolved in sulphuric acid. This brings to memory, the suffering of the Congolese people, from when King Leopold II of Belgium's rule killed an estimated 10 Million Africans.
Some planets are endowed with many moons, they rain
diamonds but ours just rains good ol' water
& we only have one moon in the shadows of the sun
Ours is the only one, to our finite knowledge, blessed
with intelligent life. Or cursed with it.
It depends.
On whether you're a king with night for a soul
who claims the Congo vines wild like your big beard
and rolling in it
or you're a naked native who slashes the rubber vines
& let the milk seep onto every inch of your body
to settle into a second skin that you peel off
& repeat until the sun’s swallowed by the king's soul.
You carry your trunk back to your shithole where
the sudden smiles of your wife and child are missing
like chunks of your skin and patches of your hair.
The king's men day drink and gripe about the stench
of rotten flesh that clings to their trench coats
like fresh wounds all over your body.
You see,
Some planets also have elements hydrogen, sulphur & oxygen
but only ours views them as ingredients for sulphuric acid
& for all its uses,
a day drinker suggests chopping bodies into pieces
and dissolving them in it. And burning what remains.
Ours, this planet, is the only one that tries this hard
to hide the truth.
Dzikamayi Chando is from Gweru, Zimbabwe. He enjoys discovering new music. His work has appeared in several online publications. He tweets @dzikamayic