WAR ON SEMANTICS
This poem is about the Genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The stains of the blood of the innocent Of 1963 and 1973 had only started to fade They still spelt the same word in the dirt That they always had GENOCIDE Year numbers grow uniformly As does the hope of an international presence Conflicting convictions, order restrictions Peaceful predictions, sent to monitor GENOCIDE 1994 Rwanda had a glimpse of the 21st century Beyond machete horizon And that new mountain of festering death Beginning with the rumours of an organised insanity GENOCIDE Pre-determined death of one; trigger Prescribed prejudice, take up your arms Call to the children to carve the smile from their own childhood And lacerate family ties GENOCIDE Around 800,000 killed in one hundred days Fitting the description by eyes, bloodshot with rivers “Too mad and too methodical to be understood” Described by those, silenced by memories of GENOCIDE Scavenger birds picking at the skin Of the masses; no longer bleeding With the last me...