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Wars and Rumours

Author: 
Toluwalope Ogunlesi

Preamble:

love has folded His sheets of music,

time assembles to distune our talking drums,

songs seal themselves in bunkers of silence,

daylight rushes her still-wet laundry in.

 

Prophecy:

scarecrows beat fear-full wings in the sky's vast

tombs,

birds freeze into poles of torment, riotously hued,

it's going to rain; it's going to pour,

the clouds whisper it, through kola-blackened teeth

 

Visions:

in years to come time will

tell it; unfold bunkers of teeth -

grinning teeth, chipped teeth, set in

a silent, still convoy of skinned skulls

 

Questions:

a canvas citizened by victims,

a canvas mounted on poles of silence

a canvas painted in pencils of (heated) lead

- did the Painter Realise his Vision?

 

Aftermath:

bunkers of silence drum to empty sheets of music

birds rain, lifeless, like kola-blackened teeth

grinning teeth, once hued, smile wet-laundry smiles

songs assemble, file into vast tombs with skinned

souls.

 

From The Journal no. 12 (Autumn 2004)

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