Heroes Poem by PAUL OGUDA

Heroes are not soldiers
Coming back home victorious
Not the generals
Strateging and running the war council
Heroes are soldiers
Coming back home in caskets
Heroes are men killed in battle
From Paris to Achilles
Che Guevara
Dedan Kimathi
Christopher Okigbo
Heroes are assassinated patriots
Pio Gama Pinto
Tom Mboya
Patrice Lumumba
Thomas Sankara
I cant name each one
But this is for all who died
For a cause, even just one
With your lives you paid
That is the ultimate price
Heroes are the young boys
Who left home and went to the forests
To fight along the Maumau
Their corpses all over the Aberdare
Rotting to enrich the soil
That they dearly loved and treasured
With not only hope but their lives
In your shallow graves
Your bones rotted away
All I say is how brave
You all went away
Your spirits at the dead of the night
Come alive to feel the air
The air of freedom
That they only harboured in their hearts
And laboured for with their lives
Heroes never comeback home
Like Malcolm X they die
Speaking their hearts out
Reformists, you will ask why
They are always wiped out
The Revolutionary cry
Has but died out
Because our heroes are dead
Dead and gone...