To Langston Hughes
Yellow the sand, faces
Creased by vivid words
Flung
helterskelter on the Wheel
Cushioned by a pile of stale newspapers
You
and I on the pillar leaning
Hieroglyphics
of life and death
When
the eye blinks
When
the belly politely rumbles
Let
me in, Spirit
Nothing
out here but darkness
And
frantic images
Let
me out, body
Nothing
in here but darkness
And
frantic images
The
river swallowed whole
My
crocodile tears
The
reed banks fluted tall
The
tiny song of distant weirs
So!
Winter a flower in defiant disarray
Liquid
electric storms veins of the petals
And
O! how could the juddering ecstacy so encompass
In
single eye the overpowering perfume of centuries
Long since disappeared.
Where the Bastard Is God?
One night downtown
I had this breakdown
Not scary like horror
Not boring like nerves
Just this one-night downtown
Breakdown
Not filthy quiet
Like the death of a whore
Not flesh torn by bicycle
chains
Like inner city riots after
football
Defeats
Not greasy blinking Loss
Crying into a beer
cursing the boss
Just this one-night downtown
Breakdown
My mind refused to cuff and
kick
Bolted down manholes to lick
sick laughs
Out of the mess masquerading
under my name
The candle of darkness was at
midnight pitch
Only black cindersparks where
I used to holler
Curses at the dark ghosts of
history’s bicycle
Race
Not sneaking out of her life
Not holding out on her
A revolution spin-
ning
back-wards
And O just this one-night
downtown
Breakdown.
Neither
Innocence Nor Experience
A
sudden blow! and she claims me for child
Hawk
eye and beard proclaim parenthood over me
Whispering
ghosts arrive bearing gifts
Declaring
an uncle, an aunt, a sister.
Where
am I? Who are these? No sooner arrived
Than
I am washed, swaddled, offered swollen breasts.
What
a world for a defenceless child!
Then
more of them wet me at the fount
Sit
me at school desk, propel me to office desk
Till
in utter bewilderment ! surrender, bite the bit,
And
haul me along to the cold anonymous Out There.
What
a world for a defenceless youth!
Love
surprises my heart at sight of another like me
We
wed, drag into light several shrieking children
Who
fearfully accept my puzzled fatherhood
And
as they grow through th’ injustice of it all
Giggle
at my dotage, sign me into The Old People’s Home
Where
now I pen this vague protest, knowing
There
is never time to know what is going on.
Green Graces Welcome Here
Light
exploded inside out
To
reveal you and I strolling in Harare
Gardens.
The
Winter winds brushed a quiet jazz tune
Over
the myriad flowers of happier
memory,
The
times my eyes through your eyes saw intimations
More
terrible than man ever saw ecstacy!
But
will
return, and over us cast a humdrum
Mosquito-net
of stars at a loss under the too-bright
Scrutiny
of ourselves looking out from all the years
left
us
to
caress.
The Chair in Grief
Time! to what freak of nature
Do you whip and slash my body
and dreams?
To what daemonic laughter do
you
Drive my once life-amazed
smile?
I look childhood in the eye —
With horror hastily turn away.
I turn all the pages of my
days —
Find them blank, yellow,
brittle;
And where passion wrote
passionately
Nothing but the squashed body
of a cockroach.
Which One of You Bastards is Death?
All the fish in Lake Kyle refused
The
can of worms you call culture —
Do
I in the bush a book and a bitch
Render
in grandiose terms the tail and theme?
Or
fight to life the death that stutters
The
doom a layer of dust settles on my window?
Or
the speech that in anorak and stout boots
Hobbles
from pub to pub seeking a gnarled silence —
Is
love the imperious thrust of loins
And
honour the dusty defeat on the enemy’s face —
Will
you say That’s how it was uncured but endured?
Not
this! How to give back what I never took;
If
so, death is our whole condition; To wake
In
release from behind the smoked glass
Mad
with the delight of seeing you again!
Not
this too! I have seen deep within your eyes the lights
Explode.
I
crept in, looking for you.
Row
upon row slaughtered pigs hung on hooks
Row
upon row garrotted memories hung from spikes —
Is
life the Nightmare death has when death is asleep?
[Probably
written in 1986. The final poem in this
collection.]
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