On First Seeing Twenty-Four Hour Electricity in Freetown.
By Gbanabom Hallowell.
Kiss earth O hands on ground
the soil’s paraphernalia on the inevitable brother-
a humility leaving a dozen pain in posterior heads
between ablutions of no organized kaaba
and scattered beads itching aged toes owl and prowl
night never being a nectar on the bloodless taste
I rise unto my waist towel-stripped tongue
And this memory of the oasis when it was full
itched the back of the desert the desert of the back
speaking of back I’m devoid of metaphors
but of dried eyes dripping of blood
in my Sierra trapped in the legend of the dark!
My official hunger defined me on morning roads
avoided even by procrastinating bats
I have crushed into imaginary trees
no longer fit to serve the name of the forests
all my days were irrelevant to me
walking on Painful Street in the middle of town
The waleng came mid-day in malarial simplicity
turning yellow the eyes of the night owl
the scandalous road danced in my eyes
but I already knew the crossroads of such pregnancies
and this time when this new child is born
its soles shall not be limited to soils of the Black Lane!
Gbanabom Hallowell (c) Dec.2007
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