Celebrated Kenyan poet Shailja Patel captures the disturbing reality of a country where violent bloodletting has become normal. Everyone is momentarily paralysed with shock; next, state terror targets the vulnerable; but soon life goes on. Yet the nation is scarred forever.
the morning after a massacre
a country wakes nauseous
no food stays down
no chai comforts
on the roads
they drag crosses
blood is given
blood invoked
blood sanctified
blood is our national language
on TV the men
talk blood and markets
tears
stay out of the newsrooms
there will be more killing
there will always be
more killing
a state will punish survivors
with pogroms
an army will terrorize
the terrrorized, traumatize
the traumatized
the merchants of war
have already moved on
to the next transaction
the death-profiteers spent the night
reviewing cost-benefit reports
a country stares at its amputation stumps
the morning after a massacre
* This poem previously appeared in http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/wiathi/garissa/">The New Inquiry.
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