Kofi

A limp soft-soaper, he wouldn’t say Boo
to a goose. Cautiously neutral, he tried
emollience, thereby creating genocide —
the massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus.

He similarly failed in Bosnia
where Unprofor, the UN mission, vetoed
the use of airstrikes to save Srebrenica.
Now twenty thousand slain lie incognito’d.

But from these holocausts was nothing learnt?
Not in Darfur, whose people in their need
were raped, then disposessed, their hovels burnt —
four hundred thousand slaughtered by the Janjaweed.

What’s left? A peace prize. Eulogistic mention.
Lavish farewells. A very handsome pension.