Friday, November 18, 2022

Decolonizing The Heart (A Poem) by Modou Lamin Age-Almusaf Sowe


Hey Miss Tonto,
You running to my mama I want you to please tell her I say that I say something
Miss Tonto, I started to believe in such things like heaven's trumpet
After it is over, is this is it done?
If there is heaven, make it speak to your son
Exaggerated a little bit
Trying to make a point to make you understand why you should quit smoking.


Miss Tonto, you see my moma tell her am lost,
Living in a world without a mother when life is tough
Falling in love is not love.
Before my funeral is arranged
Before the sky is damaged
The rivers are folded like a carpet
Your kings will be our slaves
We will assemble every man from his grave
From the incense of intelligence
To the hospital of thoughts;
We taught your teachers what you never read in books.
If insanity is the drug of misery
What is the cure for death?


Miss Tonto, my sins always light the cigarettes and people talk when I cough
I started back up again; twenty years later, I got famous throughout the world
Can buy food for myself when is life soft.


Miss Tonto, you see my mama whisper her this:
The real reason why I go to church on Sundays to confess my sins,
Passing my Bible studies and Satan helping me with my homeworks,
I saw spirits spitting and eating the flesh of so on and so on,
And until this day, Gambians do not know I write for them.
From Ghana to Alabama
Read my speeches like Barrack Obama
God sent down prophets and books
But you swallowed the pages
Painted the law of divinity
Declared yourselves prophets
Steal, rub and drink
Constitutionalized lies
Monetized the law
and normalized evil.


Miss Tonto, you see my father please ask him why he married my mother, was he happy inside?
Because it takes dignity to carry my mother's name with him.
Am sure I did it in spite of my decision at birth to be a Nigerian:
I'm a genius inside battling with Satan and all angels running arts and culture
We're like two young people with different views whether a penis is actually a toy.
I die from heart conditions caused by the divorce I did to The Gambia
What's the need of decolonizing the mind if the heart is still enslaved?
When prophets and kings sold their souls
Lies on the lips of a president
Writers write for Satan
The pastor preaches good but drinks from the bottle of sin
Money is god
Winning is vital
School teaches immorality
Education doesn't benefit Ph.D. holders
Technology controls your minds
But we control your hearts.
Decolonizing the mind, for who, to whom?
Who lied to you?


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