“ Like a baby still-born

Like a beast with its horn

I have torn everyone who reached out for me.”[1]

---

Nestled in the pregnant ground

The ancestors tamed me.

Midwived by the Companies’ adventuresome greed

I mewled and seduced, fed fanciful needs

And then

Lionised, I nurtured organised terror

I roared out my unholy power

I took humanity

and shoved it down my hole.

Gold

Solhan’s choke hold

Diamonds

Kailahun violence

Cobalt

Goma’s child soldiers

I took insanity

Fed it gas so it would explode.

Like a bankrupt billionaire

Like a unicorn turned bear

I will tear all the values that came before me.

I take humanity

And shove

it down

my hole.

Dedicated to the victims of the June 2021 Solhan massacre.

[1] From Bird on the Wire by Leonard Cohen

About the poet: Yarri Kamara is a Sierra Leonean writer living in Burkina Faso.