JOSEPH KAIFALA CONSULTING (SL) LTD

Lanpedusa My Brother’s Grave

 I

Lampedusa my brother’s grave

From rickety slums and human misery

My brothers and sisters have come

Bundled in the bond of awful memories

Tightened by the confines of their wretched vessels

Huddling and cuddling in their wooded graves

The hope of a better life their only lighthouse

Where they perish others will follow

II

Lampedusa my brother’s grave

Where tombstones flow upon salty liquid

Numbering not in single files

But in hundreds of mass liquid graves

The ocean sometimes rejecting their black bodies

The bloated corpses are washed ashore

Some nibbled upon by indifferent sea creatures

Here lies Africa’s future embalmed in salt

 III

Lampedusa my brother’s grave

Where Africa’s children cast their last lots

Battling treacherous waves upon a vast ocean

These black pirates have only hope for booty

A hope shattered by their individual nations

They cast themselves upon the sea

For a better life on another’s shore

Making for themselves a final resting place

IV 

Lampedusa my brother’s grave

In their hundreds they keep coming

Like saifu ants they file to their end

Even where news of death abounds

This their fate Africa has tolled

No sepulcher to remember their courage

In Lampedusa they rest in peace