Lost beauty #3

Lost beauty is a critical poem written by Jwani Mwaikusa (1952-2010) that clearly depicts the effects both colonialism and neo-colonialism have had on Africans and African culture in general.

 

 

LOST BEAUTY

By Jwani Mwaikusa

 

There are only white women around:

Awful fakes of white females

Reflecting an awful mass of ugliness:

And I want a lady

To mount the rostrum with

And announce to the world:

“Black is beautiful!”

 

Yes,

I want a black beauty queen

With ebony thighs and huge hips

With skin sweating blackness

And a face dark as the night

And bare breasts bouncing

Vigour and energy.

 

But my eyes, oh my eyes!

They don’t see anything black;

It’s only white skins and masks

Flashing past and slashing,

Destroying my sight so

I can’t get what I want.

 

I cry and sing to them

The inbred tune of our people,

I shout to them in the black tongue

But no black sister hears me;

Only white masks I see.

I turn and weep upon myself

And then, only then I realize:

I am not black either.

Done