"hewer" poems
(Dedicated to Eric Onyebuchi Jibero)
What an excruciating blow
You have dealt me!
A brute's uppercut offloaded
A smashing hit delivered
Like a monstrous boxer
Desirous of fame
With an amateur to tame
At this one bout too many
Wherein you have hit me below
The belt as a sadist deriving joy
From my anguish
And relish
From my enormous loss
Oh mower,
Nay hewer,
Can't you feel anything?
Can't you see?
Can't you reason for a while
With your prey?
Can't you pause to ponder
Just for a brief moment
So you can take a good decision
Choosing the right tree to fell
Instead of bringing down a mere
Sapling with your obedient saw?
Why deal sweeping blow
On a mere rookie?
Can't you distinguish
Between the ripe and the unripe?
Between the hen and the chick?
But hawks like you can pick
Meat amidst bones as Moses
In a basket amidst bulrushes
Of Nile to spare from Pharaoh's
Infant-eating sword
And in wisdom did you wait
Patiently to visit Methuselah
At the zenith of hoary hair
Master of double standards
Eyes gorged
Conscience seared
Heart cold like frozen chicken
******* dry and drooping
Like a hag's
A ruthless scorpion
That stings even babes
Rampaging ravager
Notorious brigand
Marauding machinery
Eliminating without scruple
Whoever you choose
Whose hireling are you?
God's or Satan's
Or both?
A blank cheque you flaunt
To cash as you wish
But can't you condescend to a negotiating
Table when a mere sapling is marked
For a cutting down?
Being a professional boxer
Long in this senseless trade
You should have seen the heap
Of pain you would leave
In my heart by this cruel blow
Against a budding amateur whom
You have served voracious earth
Whose stomach is a leaking tank.
Nov 2, 2010
Nov 2, 2010 at 5:22 AM UTC
Gather the crowberries for the windfeast.
Adorning our cheeks with ochre
we gather together
a throne of old rowan.
The staggards behind us ;
warm breath at our napes.
We are as careful as a circle.
So a keening for the wild flightsman,
the hewer of stone, blood-iron hearted,
now dead as a distant star
that points the way of smoke, of fire.
But for a moment the wind resides.
Dec 11, 2015
Dec 11, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC