She rises from the foam with silver skin,
A mirror for the moon upon the tide.
Where human hearts and velvet waves begin,
The secrets of the deep are held inside.
A snake is coiled around her golden neck,
To whisper of the treasures in the sand.
She haunts the timber of the rotting wreck,
And calls the weary sailor from the land.
With emerald eyes and hair of flowing jet,
She offers wealth or madness with a kiss.
A beauty that the soul cannot forget,
The siren of the watery abyss.
Her laughter is the rhythm of the shore,
A hungry ghost that asks for ever more.
The Vomit of Creation
A sonnet on Bumba, the giant white creator-god of the Bushongo people (Congo).
Before the sun, before the cooling rain,
The world was only water and the night.
Within the darkness, he was gripped by pain,
A heavy hunger for the birth of light.
He vomited the sun into the sky,
To dry the edges of the muddy shore.
The moon and stars began to drift on high,
As light began to spill through every door.
Nine creatures followed from his burning chest:
The leopard, eagle, and the silver fish.
The world was waking from its lonely rest,
To grant the silent god his every wish.
The master of the void, the father-soul,
Who broke himself to make the cosmos whole.
The Lion of Mali
A sonnet on Sundiata Keita, the legendary founder of the Mali Empire.
The boy who could not walk began to rise,
To lift the iron rod and bend the bow.
A fire kindled in his steady eyes,
To strike the shadow of a cruel foe.
The sorcerer-king is trembling in his cave,
As buffalo and lion join the fight.
No magic charm can keep a man a slave,
When justice gathers up its golden light.
Across the savannah, the horses run,
To build a kingdom where the Niger flows.
A story shining like the midday sun,
That every griot in the village knows.
The crippled prince who wore a conqueror’s crown,
And brought the walls of tyranny crashing down.
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