shapeshifting: a poem for the anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights


hitler mugabe
augusto pinochet
ahmadinejad george w
saddam amin hussein
ku klux concenclanocausts
& nazi hologration
national fascifrontalist
colenslavigration
from south afrael to isrealia
down the jaharlemaican nile
singing johhanowettoburgian
sugenodanocide

the hague drew a line under nuremberg
newsflash: the hague lied

skin/s become a star of david
& machetes are the chambers
yet at the hands of hutu/s
nobody/s game to name it / so
the congo stays a killing floor
& darfur/s children die

let those niggers kills each other
that ain/t ethnic

genocide

let/s raise up martin x guevara
che luther malcolm king
mangarvey nelson dellamarcus
charlie rosa perparkin

adolf is bunkered in rwanda
gazapartheid/s hit the strip
katrina turned new orleans to jo/burg
& kingston/s pushing tricks
but nobody says genocide

ethnic
genocide

nobody says genocide
ethnic

genocide

hitler is mugabe
who/s augusto pinochet
& pinochet was ahmadinejad
who/s saddam amin hussein

from south afrael to isrealia
down the jaharlemaican nile
singing johhanowettoburgian
sugenodanocide

the hague drew a line under nuremberg
newsflash: the hague lied

© Maxine Clarke

Maxine Beneba Clarke

Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian author and slam poet of Afro- Caribbean descent. Her short fiction collection Foreign Soil won the 2015 ABIA Award for Best Literary Fiction and the 2015 Indie Award for Best Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her memoir, The Hate Race, her poetry collection Carrying the World, and her first children’s book, The Patchwork Bike, will be published by Hachette in late 2016.

More by Maxine Beneba Clarke ›

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