African Poets: Dennis Osadebay

Who buys my thoughts

Who buys my thoughts

Buys not a cup of honey

That sweetens every taste;

He buys the throb,

Of Young Africa’s soul,

The soul of teeming millions,

Hungry, naked, sick,

Yearning, pleading, waiting.

Who buys my thoughts

Buys not some false pretence

Of oracles and tin gods;

He buys the thoughts

Projected by the mass

Of restless youths who are born

Into deep and clashing cultures,

Sorting, questioning, watching.

Who buys my thoughts

Buys the spirit of the age,

The unquenching fire that smoulders

And smoulders in every living heart

That’s true and noble or suffering;

It burns all o’er the earth,

Destroying, chastening, cleansing.

– Dennis Osadebay