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Also read First Kiss by Doug Scott

God Save Africa
Doug Scott
March 11, 2004

© 2004 by Doug Scott
All rights reserved

God save Africa
From the dictator's rule
Of torture and murder
And stolen elections.

God save Africa
From the grotesque,
public fraud
That keeps a continent
Poor.

God save the African women
Who suffer the most.

God save the families
Huddled in plastic,
Baghdad camps

God save the AIDS orphans
At so much risk,
Of rape and abuse,
And the street kids,
High on
Airplane glue
With nowhere to go.

God save the
Old people
Who can't buy
A loaf of bread
On their pensions;
After the value
Was stolen
Out of the money
By
Big, belly men
With banking connections

God save Africa
And all who love her,
Whatever their race.

God save Africa
And everyone
Working honestly,
And decently
For change.

Doug Scott is an American writer from Cleveland who grew up rowing in Philadelphia. As a young man, he went to the 60's in California and moved on to become a cowboy, construction worker in Arizona. He married a Zimbabwean in 1980 and they moved to Africa where he has lived since 1981. He is a published poet and co-author of two travel books, Struik, Cape Town, 1996. Both, like his marriage, unfortunately out of print now, but very grateful for the three children.

Doug is a hiker, a camper and ballroom dancer...living in the paradox of Africa: the intense confusion of feelings for the people, the birds and animals of the African bush and the pain of what happens here.

Write to Doug at zdoug@mweb.co.zw

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