On the streets of Freetown, poem by Alusine Barrie.

Hope, Where can I find you here?

On the streets of Freetown: by Alusine Barrie

Oh hope! Give up not though

As thy courage worn I thin and saggy

Crossing cycles of seasons you stood my camel

Crossing endless nights of toil convincing

Weakened phalanges to keep

Grinding you bore my burden

Through the dark dank blackholes of corporate Salone sniffing

Like angry dogs of beautiful African huntsmen; nothing

Thoroughly stuffed with fellow prisoners, panting

In a bale of new junk clothes headed for Africa

The young walls of my heart broken, crumbling,

Exiled in my own country

You kept me moving

Oh hope! Give up not though

As thy courage worn I thin and saggy

Throat dry like sweetened rivers of African Sahara of

Deserts lost and thoroughly stripped yet

You kept a slow and steady makambo in the quiet of my mind

Crossing cycles of seasons you stood my camel

Shoes giving up the cool of molten tarmac of days in vain

Perforated by a million stitches of tired cobblers; injections

In the unforgiving streets of Freetown, you

You kept me moving

Wide-eyed kinsmen drawing down faded curtains of hope; waiting

Reluctant fruits of a tree so well tended

In a society, had I known better

Not to trust your wisdom

So give up not though

Thy courage worn I thin and saggy

I trusted to follow your hand

Like a blind man in the unforgiving streets of Freetown

Where hope is choked to death

I fulfilled my own end of the bargain

Of thousands of years the masters pouring my vessel; of nothing

Worth my while, I stand by you

So ready us our defeated bodies for

At dawn we sail the blues

For every day is its own matrix.