BIAFRA (SONNETS ON POST COLONIAL AFRICA'S FIRST GENOCIDE) LXXII

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"Come ERINYES, come avenging FURIES, damn this NIGERIA till it repents in sackcloth my son's slavery," at the monument to the war dead ANNI seeks revenge. "I will recite of your son if ANNI turns her rage away from BIAFRA," the POET-SOLDIER speaks at last. "Not my son alone: NIGERIA'S war dead, slaves lost sixty million and more, them that starved to death, the girls slaved, murdered by the HARRAM: for thus I make the POET-SOLDIER my hierophant," ANNI mother EARTH replies. "Only if your ERINYES become the EUMENIDES, the kindly ones ever blessing by name NIGERIA'S war dead, the starved, the enslaved girls and your son," the POET-SOLDIER tells ANNI. "NIGERIA be the sanctuary of the afflicted."









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