Written by: ISIOMA ISICHEI
We have cultivated a sad harvest
In pastural misfit to the prime of ages
Holding anguish on our myth
When the story shall be told
By tongues that hold dirge away
From mid-air, about the labour of gloom
In the den of night.
About the defiant legend who contest the dark
Widowhood tears for the ritual of
Mutilated womb.
Our culture is holed up and refuses to die
By habit, dream is now mere illusion
Imagined by idle flesh as fairy tale
Sold in bulk to the yearnings of the heart.
But for this rare trade of living,
The market is a blighted dung of dawn!
We have cultivated a sad harvest
In penurious song from chantless wails.
Even though i appeal to the distorted remnants
Of our tradition, even though i shuttle
Between life and immortality,
My belief has become my god intact for
Lament is now a luscious feast in our history
Draining away the pus of ancient proclamations.
Let us rejoice for the cold that has ravaged
The land, coming with the wind of discord
When the tale by moonlight shall be told
By naked perfectionists, may they not lay my
Bed on decay and make the earth my blanket.
When the story of horror shall be told,
Of mankind walking the street of shadows
And emerging triumphant in agony,
Let cessation not stammer down my night.
Our world is blessed on sage of briefness
Through passing phase drawn from the tender stalk
Which defiles germination, solemn hands
To the grey manicure.
Night has become our day,
Our cleavage to joy of stillbirth.
I am the first victim of persecution,
Running in haste away from intimate depression.
When we shall tell the folktale revelation
In faded costumes, let me be the last man standing
On roses of thorns beside the graveyard
And looking in supplication to the half emerging sun
To bleach away the river of ill-fate
In this night of day.