CPTnet
28 December 2005
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO POEM: All sides use rape as a weapon of war,
Part III
by Maia Williams
[Note: Williams was part of a Christian Peacemaker Team delegation to the
Congo in October and November of 2005. For parts I and II of "All sides
use rape as a weapon of war," see
http://www.cpt.org/archives/2005/nov05/0033.html and
http://www.cpt.org/archives/2005/dec05/0018.html ]
Equatorial Sun
In the Congo
The black light shines
In the middle of the day
Women dance in layers
Of peacock colors
And the young men
In mismatched military
Take-those-offs
Carry their gun by the barrel
Over the shoulders
Whistling Dixie
The U.N. people
Stay in their trucks
Black insults
Thrown too much
To walk into
The blazing fires
Of their personal hell
The air is hollow outside
America is having nightmares
Bared
Shared with the world
I dare myself to cry
But the tear drops
Are frozen by the leer
Of another man
Thousands of women
Are telling stories
To thousands of women
Creating survivors
Out of the flesh and bone
Skeletons are buried
In mounds
Underneath flexible trees
And when they ask me
Where I am from
I reply
America
In America
It is red white and blue
American Pie the DVD series
And snow
The heart of darkness
Recedes into the night sky
Mythology
Of a Congo
In chains
And slave
Gangs with no name
In shame with no money
Can't destroy the gun game
So the living is forgotten
Can't name the life
That you've bought in
That's what its like to be dark
In light of the logic of economics
The trauma that is rotting
The trauma that is cutting
The necks of rape survivors
Pregnant and bartered
We've fallen into oblivion
Never reciting
The deaths of these martyrs
The innocent mothers
Street children quartered
In war
Every language creates
The difference between women
And whore
So what do these women
Call themselves
The same as they called me
Sister
Mama
Messenger
In the Congo
The U.S. buys men
And women
And plays war with itself
In America
We tune out the world
By turning on the news
We could choose to refuse
The good news
That somebody's war
Is our gain
Our reign on this earth
And the 4th world
Will emerge like herds
Of gazelles running
Through the hills
Of the u.s. dollar bill
Militias territorial hell
Who are gangbanging
Women to prove
They have something
To spill
In the 4th world
Tupac is born hundreds
Of times day
And he prays to his mama
Not the voice
Of the voiceless
But of the choices
To enjoy life even when
She's loaded with 50 kg
Of manioc and groceries
Women who
Look like the women who hold me
Through the tears
That I'm hiding
In my dreams
The Congo is wider
Than an equatorial
Bird's wings
Soaring over diamond
Petal flowers
And gold studded trees
Richer than mahogany
Feet stomping
Out a drum beat
and the women survivors
Are dancing with their children
Singing for amani
That leaves them breathless
Rather than helpless
With the bones of the deathless
They are building
A civil society
In my dreams
Blinded by
The cover of a war
That we created
But we still refuse
To see
In the Congo
In America
In the beauty
Of a rape survivor's
Dream
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