WITCH HUNT
A
seething night heat
Moving
air funneled into an imaginary hell hole
A
blitzkrieg of mosquitoes
expending their wish like firecrackers
expending their wish like firecrackers
chanting
martial music in one's ear
A
shadow of evil dressed in that one-colour-for-all-occasion
The
bogeyman's hooded pants sporting countless pockets of darken nooks
Everyone
is dead now
As
the heavenly street lamp flickers on
The
city clock hits twelve
To
an epoch of extra human resurrection
Mongrels
are bawling ominously at aliens dropping from the outer worlds
A
great black invisible chimera surges into the still air
sends
one loud piercing shrill
Suddenly
time recourses to a backdated renaissance cinema house
A
beckoning
Your
primal instinct heightens
An
earth quakes on every corner of your heart's beating chambers
Till
you astral travel to another new world
A
world of black and white hue paved in burn brushes
You
are in a marketplace - a noisome one
The
scenes twirls before your eye
faster
that than the visible light spectrum
In
a minute your skin slowly crawls up to its creator
A
hand falls heavily like a metal cuff on your shuddered shoulder
Announcing
a presence that excites every hair of your body
A
standing candelabrum with nine flaming eyes of inferno
The
image of an old man with
A
collage of rivulets on his face running free from pole to pole
Fear
grips you hard like a kidnapper's threat
Lips
gives way as if to speak but nothing comes forth
As
a gravid cloud refusing to shower
You
hold his gaze
you
recognize him all too well
In
the former world - he was
Known
by several names: like son, husband, father, boss,ruler, president, royal
In
the former world
You
washed his faeces-stained pants,
did
the long hours and followed without questions
He
was a god reveling in glory and you were -
The
poor servant lusting after the gloated trove of his miracles
For
a second breathing moment you behold
The
red hot embers that sits in his eye sockets as an ottoman
sending
clouds of framed memories
Quick!!!
It comes back to you like a suggestion in a dream
What
the dread locked dervish sputtered
as
he did his spasmodic disco dance he bespoke -
Of
the source of your misery
The
stream of your endless tribulations
Of
the root of your mishaps
And
there it stood
in
brazen defiance before your very eye
The
old man with many names
the
glowing splinter of yesteryears misdeeds in his eye and
A
smile too treacherous to dismiss
A
steely grip as the metal cuffs to keep you bowed
like
a sworn slave buried with his African monarch (abobaku)
The
old man that witch haunts you since
You
were nothing but a clutter of motherless cells up to your old frail self,
Memories
-
Memories
of what you could have been.
Yet
as you take one last peer
but
for the last time every detail of his old frail self
You
recognize an unmistakable sameness
And
all this time
in
the former life,
It
was you: The oppressed and the oppressor,
Two
equal and opposite nature: the former and new
It
was you all this time.
This poem was inspired initially by one of those random events. One night, I was in company of some of my old folks and exactly by 12 midnight, we heard a loud shrill from a bird. Someone said 'God will punish you.' At first, there was quiet, then i remember i was the only one in the room that busted into laughter much to the gawking elders.
ReplyDeleteThen I remember as a kid i was constantly told to be wary not to anger witches and other element that could destroy my life.
Hahaha!!!