Behind the Sun
The faces of the tom-toms were sallow,
So was the face of the sun, dark-visaged,
Red, and starved through a pogrom
That assaulted the peace of the beasts.
Darkness spelt the names of diseases,
Each pronounced through stiffened tongues,
Whited by the scourge of hate – a common
Figure, cadaverous and laconic, but incestuous.
Grieving rivers sought ways to be rechristened
Or rebaptized by holy rills with less fetor, as
Long as riparian languages were still spoken on
Breaths of brooks, broken, but gathered in bits
By hands that leaned on fermented soot only.
And darkness persisted, perspiring from hostile
Beats of hollow drums when fire reaches them
From tormented skies.
One truth loomed: the truth of a disvirgined
Destiny, clothed in serrated raiment of grief.
On its crown, shredded petals of holocausts
Form toothless thorns shaped like lightning.
Death was prominent, dispirited, and hung loose
On strings smelted on anvils raging from heinous
Rape of a blooded land. Shores wept with humour
When our frightened coasts sneezed with mirth.
I speak of Biafra where the land still bleeds
I recall that vision, of a crowded city,
Where signs were hung in heaven,
Where voices were muted by the colour of bold words.
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