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POEMS BY DULUE MBACHU
Fair Hearing
“You are charged
Before this court…
Guilty or not guilty?”
And a man
Whose history
Indicts his accusers
Is asked to
Sum up his life
In one word
Here Lies Buried
(For Pee Cee)
Here lies buried
Our thoughts.
Thoughts which in
The elasticity of our imagination
Produced impregnable fortresses
Of justice and equity.
Here it lies –
In this vomit of merry wine and flesh.
And we stand
Talking through sour mouths
Of what the draft plan says.
Talking that we may drink again!
The Drill
After the drill
We were let into
The secret
And armed with
The secret,
We can now go
And rule over others.
The secret being
That they do not
Know our secret
Is the drill
You beggar sitting
You beggar sitting with despair –
Plate empty,
Cheeks furrowed,
Eyes bereft of hope and dizzy,
Neck thinned out –
The churn of your belly
Reminds me of rainstorms
I’ve been to the theatre –
The author wrote you,
The actor acted you –
Fit as a fiddle. And you sit,
Not knowing how much laughter
They’re causing the well-fed
By your mockery.
Bar Beach
Water in unbounded expanse
Rolling itself into giant waves
The size of huge buildings
And hauling itself against the shore
Repeatedly
As if in protest
Against something
About the author.
Fair Hearing
“You are charged
Before this court…
Guilty or not guilty?”
And a man
Whose history
Indicts his accusers
Is asked to
Sum up his life
In one word
Here Lies Buried
(For Pee Cee)
Here lies buried
Our thoughts.
Thoughts which in
The elasticity of our imagination
Produced impregnable fortresses
Of justice and equity.
Here it lies –
In this vomit of merry wine and flesh.
And we stand
Talking through sour mouths
Of what the draft plan says.
Talking that we may drink again!
The Drill
After the drill
We were let into
The secret
And armed with
The secret,
We can now go
And rule over others.
The secret being
That they do not
Know our secret
Is the drill
You beggar sitting
You beggar sitting with despair –
Plate empty,
Cheeks furrowed,
Eyes bereft of hope and dizzy,
Neck thinned out –
The churn of your belly
Reminds me of rainstorms
I’ve been to the theatre –
The author wrote you,
The actor acted you –
Fit as a fiddle. And you sit,
Not knowing how much laughter
They’re causing the well-fed
By your mockery.
Bar Beach
Water in unbounded expanse
Rolling itself into giant waves
The size of huge buildings
And hauling itself against the shore
Repeatedly
As if in protest
Against something
About the author.