Poem: The geometry of a black man

It’s not the bold contours

Or the darkness of the skin

That outlines the story of a black man

It’s a story buried in centuries of slavery

A pungent story that needs to be hidden

At all cost, the story of a black man is being vandalized

In a bid to erase millions of pages of history

And erect a colourless society

That has no semblance of reality

A black man is the most abused entity in the history of mankind

No amount of analgesics can begin to heal the pain felt by generations of black men

The shame, poverty and utter powerlessness

Absorbed in the psyche of a black man is beyond human logic

It’s this hideous scar encapsulating the identity of a black man

That is so repulsive to those who harbor racial intolerance

In their own little world

They want to erase the black man from the face of history

Past, present and future

To re-write the story of humankind

Away from the disfigured geometry of a black man

It’s true that a black man suffered immense pain

It’s also true that a black man is still an object of systematic injustices

But it’s also true that a black man is one of the most spiritual human being in the history of mankind

Not obsessed with his physical scars

A black man is possessed with his spiritual identity

Far away from the ugly reality of his past

A black man yearns for freedom, peace and equality

A black man yearns for Love

To be accepted as one of the pillars of the human race

A Black man desires life

Life that is inoculated from pain and suffering

“Black lives matter” is the innocent scream

That calls beyond the clouds of hatred

To the human heart hidden beneath each and every one of us

To consider a black man as a man

That deserves dignity, justice and prosperity

The geometry of a black man is not at all different from the geometry of the human race

©

Kenneth Maswabi

(01-07-2020)