We, the people of the Republic of Liberia, were
originally inhabitants of the United States of America.

Some of the early settlers . . . were formerly
inhabitants of the United States of America.
We were taxed without our consent.

They were . . .
We were made a separate and distinct class . . .
Strangers from other lands, of a color different from ours,
were preferred before us.

They were made a separate and distinct class, and against them every avenue of improvement was effectually closed. Strangers . . . were preferred before them.

-- Albert Porte, Thoughts on Change; Crozierville, 1977.

Bill shall be. George--even our greatest.
Seeing that Jimmy is now puzzled about
what seems a plain transfer of Savannah to
Harbel. To state to (or ask?) the Firestone Plantation chief
“why” is deep thinking, Jimmy. If James was buried with the
key to a diseased city, it is also deep thinking to
wonder why Monrovia has been dying since birth.
Imagine a Lazarus' relief, Mr. Poet,
in a renewed cancerous life. Would a new city--
away from this now
unmarked grave of all our pathos--be too much
for the thinking? Or the de facto national gods of
Ignorance, Disorientation, Elections and Enjoyment
sacrifice us to a vexed Atlantic, as Buchanan,
another dying city, lies hapless
for that watery knife?

* Born in Harbel, Liberia, Annaird Naxela lectures in English at CUNY/College of Staten Island and researches the development and evolution of Liberian literature. His soon-to-be-published collection of poems is entitled: ‘Memory and Migration.’

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org