War Dust: A Loss Foretold

Dust is but a reality. There are more truths ​w​ithin your reach when it floats, ​tickles your nostrils, ​and makes you sneeze.  You conjure up a silly game with the sunbeam. ​A shadowy game of will and desire.

No one gets hurt in it, nobody wins either...

​Oh, is it? What if those opaque particles were dead conscience, the dust specs mortal remains of what used to be dreams. The wails hardly prick, the fireworks lack empathy, all lost in dust. If it is a war, then why are you at peace?

Hmmm... We all get hurt in it,  and, nobody wins either... 

​As the dust settles, on aspirations, ​on the books and the music box, a nightmare begins. No light to play under, a huge shadow looms, eclipsing all memories of a ​happy child at j​est.

​-- Leslie 

Cancer!

The beefy armoured

love from the infantry,

took on the sharp edged

mystery from a Samurai’s soul.

They all won, but chivalry died,

cursing with his last breath:

Let there be light,

mushrooms, and cancer.

Now we mortgage life,

for our lust,

for mobility,

for insecurity;

and try to burn away

the corrupt genes,

a war we all lose. 

Where the hell is chivalry?

 

Ode to Bulawayo

There goes another wicket,
in haste they walk!

I stroll in taste,
Bulawayo’s Queen in my arms,
the soft whisper from
the swaying ol' timers,
the masters,
the witnesses,
the faithfuls beyond the 
east frame of a green canvas,
an oval mirror for men;
their leaves speak of old glory,
of war and peace,
revolutions and blood,
of solutions and dread,
and of love… 

… How will I forget love?
In the promised land
a few Safaris away,
I hunt and shunt
in a game I always lose;
like my dear hosts
who’re lost at home… 
home bitter home!

That Boy in the Rain

Those three storeys,
shadowless today,
project the layers in the
story of that boy in the rain...

A man walks into the
square reserved for morning prayers,
midday chaos and evening jest;
to splash water on his soul,
to forget love,
to tear open his shirt, feel love...

From the heavens;
from the girl of yore; from you;
from the blonde across the table;
over candle-lit dinners;
or at a beach empty.
But, man he can't love!

He can only kneel,
in pain now,
his will slashed in war.
He watches, in dread,
as the boy fades into the mist
rising from a basketball court.

With that, poof, his memories mix,
into a dull grey Molotov cocktail,
then flow into the polluted gut
of a city of rushed dreams.

While two boys live, swinging, 
their moment drenched in lust,
a thirst for life, yes lust;
their clocks tick-toeing towards truth,
towards the end of innocence,
where they’ll begin to die!

Instagram: Pixeles_

Ides of March

Fools, Brutes at best,
mobbed in lust,
for power, a coup to mute
his voice in history...
The Republic shouts,
Caesar is dead!

Statesmen, fools none the less,
gave their king
a gift meant for Gods,
immortality...
As they wrote in blood,
the Ides of March, Beware!

Blood flows again,
and again,
March to summers many,
through the bitter winters,
across Europe, Persia, the new world...
The red clot on a white robe
still stands out, but why?
For he was Julius,
not just another Harvard graduate
at an Oval Office.