THE CHILD, THE GUN AND HIS SPOILS
THE CHILD, THE GUN AND HIS SPOILS
A child
like every seed is born
he learns the ways of his fathers
he learns to grow against all odds
a fine craft created.
A boy is born
preinstalled with a million lofty dreams,
the visions on the homefront -
like his contemporaries
to sojourn on that ritualistic journey
to the city on the hill top made of gold
today we remember him -
not for the cackles of a little boy
running around in diapers
We are reminded of the odyssey of his mind
lugged by the Devil's gift wrapped in a ruddy teenager.
The Gun...
a prosecutor asking -
"why am I different?"
"why can't i fit into this hollow shaft set for me
in the world of the running dusty roads and -
sprawling skyscrapers?"
the substance of a putrid age-old tradition melted into my being.
How is it that among my kinsmen
I now behold the reflection of a fearsome beast
a taboo to all mankind alike-
young and old.
The gun
my sceptre
my sceptre is indiscriminate
I discover -
answers to no one
yet it is for all
They say:
"I am the sign of the perilious times"
They think:
the gun is the mark of the beast
yet they do not see
beyond the cold metal
or the smoke chugging out of its nozzle
that -
it is the ultimate power of knowledge
An ottoman raised above all my demons
and beastly urges,
Of all my said Kinsmen that reached deep
into the meat of my soul,
the ones as like a sheep to a shepherd
i laid my trust on day and night,
Those that see my nakedness as I am
that cut me insidiously while
they smile like cherubims
tied me and invented the sickest instrument of torture to my soul
while they claim
to consecrated me in the bloody pool
of fetid ancient traditions
beneath the mural of the cultural beliefs we hold dear
often bringing out the worst of humanity -
Inequality and oppression in all shades
among the human race.
The gun
my retribution,
my cries falling on deaf ears
at the colorful communal gyration
of the passage to manhood.
I became accustomed - an epiphany
to the indifference of my closest Kinsmen
and the learned helplessness at the appalling voicelessness
that brands my senses like a hot crucible.
The gun
like an armoury
I become the weapon of terror and fear
of authority - i dare not possess on my own
from thence it is me
against the world of skeletons with hollow eyes.
His Spoils,
The boy
becomes the product of the earth, wind, water and fire
of his birthplace
a toy-soldier conscripted against his will
the troubled spirit of a precocious child
resembling the reflections of a full adult.
several years have past
in this training camp
the conditions of which wears his ruddy soul out
'cause the boy to speed into the future unknown
the uncertain place is tomorrow
filled with endless air hoops that defy time
questions streaming through the valley of my mind
while his ruddy spirit goes AWOL
away from his teenage body
tossed and blown in the tornadoes of street life
crashing on the immutable dead weight of cultural beliefs
Yet against these forces
his spirit soars bodaciously
wading through seasons of overwhelming waters and Burning fire
and his familiar enemies.
Then he crosses the forbidden line of mortality
when he comes back
a born-again version of the same ruddy boy
An angry, faceless one
to unleash judgement
fury on all that stood still -
guilt or not
At that painful ritual
as the cold steel of an ageless societal mores
sears his soul,
He shall return quickly
with his Gun then
to claim his spoils.
Note: the theme of poem is about the rising trend of school shootouts around the world. The author made allusion to the average youth being cut down and dragged on the street by so many influences from tradition to neo-colonial movement and corruption.
The crime to society by the perpetrator himself is crime turned inside-out against his person. It turns him into something destructive and franksteinic. His way of escape is through violence, thuggery, rape, militancy, hooliganism, thuggery, trash music and art forms that shows a disturbed mental state.
