Today we shall have the naming of parts. How the opening of that poem by Henry Reed caught his present thoughts; that banal naming of parts of a soldier’s rifle set against the delicate colours and textures of the gardens outside the lecture room. *Japonica glistening like coral  . . . branches holding their silent eloquent gestures . . . bees fumbling the flowers. It was the wrong season for this so affecting poem – the spring was not being eased as here, in quite a different garden, summer was easing itself out towards autumn, but it caught him, as a poem sometimes would.

He had taken a detour through the gardens to the studio where in half an hour his students would gather. He intended to name the very parts of rhythm and help them become aware of their personal knowledge and relationship with this most fundamental of musical elements, the most connected with the body.

He had arranged to have a percussionist in on the class, a player he admired (he had to admit) for the way this musician had dealt with a once-witnessed on-stage accident that he’d brought it into his poem sequence Lemon on Pewter. They had been in Cambridge to celebrate her birthday and just off the train had hurried their way through the bicycled streets to the college where he had once taught, and to a lunchtime concert in a theatre where he had so often performed himself.

Smash! the percussionist wipes his hands and grabs another bottle before the music escapes checking his fingers for cuts and kicking the broken glass from his feet It was a brilliant though unplanned moment we all agreed and will remember this concert always for that particular accidental smile-inducing sharp intake of breath moment when with a Fanta bottle in each hand there was a joyful hit and scrape guiro-like on the serrated edges a no-holes barred full-on sounding out of glass on glass and you just loved it when he drank the juice and fluting blew across the bottle’s mouth

And having thought himself back to those twenty-four hours in Cambridge the delights of the morning garden aflame with colour and texture were as nothing beside his vivid memory of that so precious time with her. The images and the very physical moments of that interval away and together flooded over him, and he had to stop to close his eyes because the images and moments were so very real and he was trembling . . . what was it about their love that kept doing this to him? Just this morning he had sat on the edge of his bed, and in the still darkness his imagination seemed to bring her to him, the warmth and scent of her as she slept face down into a pillow, the touch of her hair in his face as he would bend over her to kiss her ear and move his hand across the contours of her body, but without touching, a kind of air-lovers movement, a kiss of no-touch. But today, he reminded himself, we have the naming of parts . . .

He was going to tackle not just rhythm but the role of percussion. There was a week’s work here. He had just one day. And the students had one day to create a short ‘poem for percussion’ to be performed and recorded at the end of the afternoon class. In his own music he considered the element of percussion as an ever-present challenge. He had only met it by adopting a very particular strategy. He regarded its presence in a score as a kind of continuo element and thus giving the player some freedom in the choice of instruments and execution. He wanted percussion to be ‘a part’ of equal stature with the rest of the musical texture and not a series of disparate accents, emphases and colours. In other words rhythm itself was his first consideration, and all the rest followed. He thought with amusement of his son playing Vaughan-Williams The Lark Ascending and the single stroke of a triangle that constituted his percussion part. For him, so few composers could ‘do it’ with percussion. He had assembled for today a booklet of extracts of those who could: Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale (inevitably), Berio’s Cummings songs, George Perle’s Sextet, Living Toys by Tom Ades, his own Flights for violin and percussionist. He felt diffident about the latter, but he had the video of those gliders and he’d play the second movement What is the Colour of the Wind?

In the studio the percussionist and a group of student helpers were assembling the ‘kits’ they’d agreed on. The loose-limbed movements of such players always fascinated him. It was as though whatever they might be doing they were still playing – driving a car? He suddenly thought he might not take a lift from a percussionist.

On the grand piano there was, thankfully, a large pile of the special manuscript paper he favoured when writing for percussion, an A3 sheet with wider stave lines. Standing at the piano he pulled a sheet from the pile and he got out his pen. He wrote on the shiny black lid with a fluency that surprised him: a toccata-like passage based on the binary rhythms he intended to introduce to his class. He’d thought about making this piece whilst lying in bed the previous night, before sleep had taken him into a series of comforting dreams. He knew he must be careful to avoid any awkward crossings of sticks.

The music was devoid of any accents or dynamics, indeed any performance instructions. It was solely rhythm. He then composed a passage that had no rhythm, only performance instructions, dynamics, articulations such as tremolo and trills and a play of accents, but no rhythmic symbols. He then went to the photocopier in the corridor and made a batch of copies of both scores. As the machine whirred away he thought he might call her before his class began, just to hear her soft voice say ‘hello’ in that dear way she so often said it, the way that seem to melt him, and had been his undoing . . .

When his class had assembled (and the percussionist and his students had disappeared pro tem) he began immediately, and without any formal introduction, to write the first four 4-bit binary rhythms on the chalkboard, and asked them to complete it. This mystified a few but most got the idea (and by now there was a generous sharing between members of the class), so soon each student had the sixteen rhythms in front of them.

‘Label these rhythms with symbols a to p’, he said, ‘and then write out the letters of your full name. If there’s a letter there that goes beyond p create another list from q to z. You can now generate a rhythmic sequence using what mathematicians call a function-machine. Nigel would be:

x x = x     x = = =      = x x =      = x x x      x = x x

Write your rhythm out and then score it for 4 drums – two congas, two bongos.’

His notion was always to keep his class relentlessly occupied. If a student finished a task ahead of others he or she would find further instructions had appeared on the flip chart board.  Audition –in your head - these rhythms at high speed, at a really quick tempo. Now slow them right down. Experiment with shifting tempos, download a metronome app on your smart phone, score the rhythms for three clapping performers, and so on.

And soon it was performance time and the difficulties and awkwardness of the following day were forgotten as nearly everyone made it out front to perform their binary rhythmic pieces, and perform them with much laughter, but with flair and élan also. The room rang with the clapping of hands.

The percussionist appeared and after a brief introduction – in which the Fanta bottle incident was mentioned - composer and performer played together *****’s Clapping Music before a welcome break was taken.

Sounding like some wild soundtrack
to a Spaghetti Western starring
none other than The Clintster,
it were rolling in good vibes
with the peeps taking selfies
with the band for a backdrop.

Two horns poundin' out
a happening grove,
with a bass player all of
four foot nothin'.
with a cool round sound.

It was cookin' alright,
hours after midnight,
a Halifax sextet hinting
of Tom Waits and the The Bob man.

I yawned, I looked around,
all those sweet tarts in their skin tights.
I yawned again, shook my head
as the band was covering Ray Charles...
I yawned again and again
and realized I am too old to party hardy.

But still... 'I can hack it'.. the last thing I said
as I headed out the door, homeward bound
In a January breeze that had a hint of Spring.

end © 2014

Candy
Bubblegum girl, I think you deserve better.
You're dating a man who acts like a child,
Leaving a breadcrumb trail of missed calls until you're crying down the phone at work
Leaking candy floss tears into the carpet.
Far be it from me to impart my wisdom,
There's only a few months between us
But I've stopped pearlescent pear drops
Forming on my cheeks
Because no man is ever worth it, sugar.

Vegan
He told you drink no milk and eat no eggs
Till your blood thinned out and your body starved
Girl, you should know
A man who tries to purify your body
Is aiming to conquer holy ground
Raining redemption on the promised land
This is not the Crusades
And he has no right to a single centimetre of you
Your body is a temple of ***, drugs and rock n roll
It's a sin to cleanse it with kale.

Sky
You had a friend who painted you the colour of sunsets
Bleeding, beautiful, bright
Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?
Did it hurt when he shot you down?
Was your daddy a thief because I swear he stole stars to put in your eyes
And now that man wants them out
Stardust in his pocket
Leaving you dark and blind
How do you tame the sky?
By convincing you you're a wolf in sheeps clothing
Dressed himself up as the victim, the lamb to the lion
Ironed out the creases in his smile until he's a cloudless day
And you're the monster in the depths.

Scorpio
Five foot *******
In love with the sound of his own voice
With a flex of his pecs
He tells you he just doesn't think you 'werk'
You just don't seem to 'vibe' and with that jibe
Strips the maturity from the situation until it's exposed enough to be instagrammable.
You know what he's really like
Round family a sweetheart, an old fashioned charmer
Darling he's built himself a brand new armour
A carapace
And you may well get crabby sometimes
But he's the one with the sting.

Anxiety
He’s sweet
Really
A pure soul with no ulterior goals in mind
He likes you.
And guys too,
Which surprises you a little.
Maybe it’s his unassuming posture
The way he holds his head
And the five o’clock shadow that creeps through till it’s gone midnight
And he hasn’t messaged yet.
He likes you
Really
But doesn’t have control over his tongue
As it writhes inside the stranglehold the brain has put it under.
He came to these studios to find a voice
And found yours, lilting, Celtic with a northern twang
Like the snapped string of a guitar.
You talk to him about...everything
And he tries to muster the words to keep up with your shine
Finds solace in your bed but not your lips.
He ends it over text
With bitten nails stabbing the keys
To lock your heart anew.

New Rules
Something about the hesitation in your smile says
That you are used to living on a knife edge
A bridge edge
A cliff edge
Anywhere he could push-pull you off
Throw himself into churning depths so you'll come back to catch him
But you're the ******, naturally
Throw around the C-U-N
Tea-sipping, words slipping from your mouth as we realise
A shared history, of a sort.
We've both felt the iron tang of blood
As we bit our tongues against injustices railed against us
Words and names buried so deep
They cannot be plucked out like the splintered praise of friends.
You say You'd take him back in a heartbeat,
But all you're missing is an echo chamber
A sounding board for your own atrioventricular system
Hidden behind your lungs
Is all the love that you could give.
Share it with the world.
Share it with yourself.
And don't pick up the phone.

A smooth jazz blast from the musical past:
The confused ethnomusicology,
The pleasantly discordant riffs and
Jingles of "Hiroshima"—
The band not the bomb site—
Whose fusion sound
Evokes an insane sextet
Granting membership, inexplicably to
Schroeder-- the Peanuts loony tune—
Hitting only the black keys of his piano,
His miniature keyboard
Sour, melodious & pure.

I’ll trace the lines of a love poem
With the tip of my generous tongue
I’ll bend you over a sonnet
pounding your heart with verse
Until you come
Closer to the slippery edge
Of the highest haiku peak

Pulsing cranes shoot from
Sky following deep swallows
Cascading heat wing

The beat of the sextet
Engorges the plump plum with tantalizing taste
As the surging wind tickles swirling grass meadows
A pirates plunder
unbridled womanly chaste
Riding my large prose with feminine pleasure
Until both writhing bodies are drenched in chicken broth rain
I will slather you in brilliant color
As you vacantly stare ecstatic
Groaning through the augustan age

very mysterious DP....
you look deep in thoughts,
dreams flowing like wind,
through your mind and hair.
pink, a reflection of the soft warmth
of your *****.

A smooth jazz blast from the musical past:
The confused ethnomusicology,
The pleasantly discordant riffs and
Jingles of "Hiroshima"—
The band not the bomb site—
Whose fusion sound
Evokes an insane sextet
Granting membership, inexplicably to
Schroeder-- the Peanuts loony tune—
Hitting only the black keys of his piano,
His miniature keyboard
Sour, melodious & pure.
I am reading Ayn Rand’s
"Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition"
Of The Fountainhead, 1993;
An important 20th Century novel, I am told,
A book first copyrighted—
That’s copyrighted spelled without a W—
First copyrighted in 1943,
A copyright renewed in 1971,
By Ayn herself;
An important book--
Whether you’ve bought into her
Man-worshiping atheism—
Or not.
I write these words on the back of a business envelope,
The only paper to be found in this house,
Not ironic, while pondering
A wireless laptop charging,
Plugged in far away on a kitchen countertop.
Lying on a couch in northern New Mexico,
It is an Ides of March 2014 mid-afternoon.
I am 64 years old.
Old enough to know better;
Growing more conservative each day,
With Ayn, I celebrate he who never gives up,
“By spitting in one’s own face,
And damning existence.”
The Fountainhead:
She called the book a “GUIDEPOST,”
A reminder of man’s noble vision,
Proclaiming man in noble glory.
A Sartre you were not, Ayn.
How interesting to think of
The two of you, co-temporaries,
Aspirating the same Earth atmosphere.
This fact itself, an astonishing example of
"Weltanschaung" polarity.
No wonder the world is so ****** up.

A mellifluous sextet
circled in awed child beauty,
          reserved for post-modernists
in the dead mary-go-round
Inferno.  Civil war is
                                  on the tongues of roses. Trap-
                                                                           door seats, enigmatic music,
control of arms gyrating
out of American dreams.
Boring clocks toll for the death
                                                                of painters holding depraved,
easy lives in service of
                                     stripped one-hour masters,

but we all have hair and bills,
neglect and hours setting
up appointments to escape
what we owe                    to turpentine
           obsessions for running off.

Beyond is a bleak, grey skyline

I barely recognize my vignette

Yet here I am, walking that thin white line

As if I had not met him yet



I barely recognize my vignette

Black swans move like serpentines

As if I had not met him yet

Slow, calculated, but ready to strike at cloud nine



Black swans move like serpentine

He still whispers in my ear, I just cannot forget

Slow, calculated, but ready to strike me at cloud nine

“Pulvis et umbra sumus,” was his epithet



He still whispers in my ear, I just cannot forget

Their banshee bugle wails overcome; I am confined

“Pulvis et umbra sumus,” was his epithet

Like smashed cherries, their eyes were as ****** as port wine



Their banshee bugle wails overcome; I am confined

He wanted to mold to be a useful asset

Like smashed cherries, their eyes were as ****** as port wine

I gladly follow those threats



He wanted to mold me to be a useful asset

What called them on was my mental upset

I gladly follow those threats

There is nothing to regret



What called them on was my mental upset

It is foolish to once think I could outshine

There is nothing to regret

All I have ahead is a relentless battle line



It is foolish to once think I could outshine

I am merely a pathetic statuette

All I have ahead is a relentless battle line

Soon they all will forget



I am merely a pathetic statuette

Onyx swans call me to the brackish streamline

Soon they all will forget

It is there I snipped that innocent white line



Onyx swans call me to the brackish streamline

He influences my mindset

It is there I snipped that innocent white line

Time becomes frigid as I sink into that brine outlet



He influences my mindset

My body is limp in the alkaline

Time becomes frigid as I sink into that brine outlet

It is there I found no lifeline



My body is limp in the alkaline

The onyx swans fly in a v-line sextet

It is there I found no lifeline

He brought me to the finish with no reset



Beyond was a bleak, grey skyline

Yet there I was, walking that thin white line.

i look at it this way, i said
we are sailors and our bodies are our ships
relationships are the riggings, the sails, the sextet
and love. love in particular is the anchor
it can keep us grounded in tumultuous times,
help us correct our paths more quickly,
stabilize our journeys, and allow us the choice of sea or port.
but when it's a bad match,
it holds us back, limits our freedom,
damages our vessel, and drowns us.

indeed, part of determining that is learning and experimental.
learning how to use the anchor,
when it is appropriate to drop
and when it must be raised.
but the anchor itself is not inherently good or bad.
either fit or experience makes it useful or useless

that's beautiful, she said
where have you been all my life?

i paused.
i have been lost at sea
what seemed like eons
learning to sail
and where to anchor.

Six of us here
in the bland and zinc-white
waiting room, small
machine on the floor
burning the air
with brown noise.
We're nominally here
for group therapy,
but in truth we prefer
to ritually founder
in great excesses of civility.

The therapists all but plead
for us to say right upfront
exactly what we don't like
about each other.
That's uncomfortable,
and each of us toys with the idea
before securing the old masks.

My own mask isn't the Venetian
kind, or the grotesque
Twilight Zone voodoo variety,
but the clear hospital type,
used to inhale great lungs of ether.

Sometimes sincerity creeps
from the gaps,
sometimes I do my best
to collapse into this checkered chair,
close my eyes and hide
in the sound of my blood.
It sounds surprisingly like
the brown noise machine.

I'm up against it.
I'm not getting younger,
and these feel like last chances
to learn to be, in a way
where I don't end up
shut away, eating myself alive,
riddled with depression
and loneliness and long black
strings of guilt that resonate
like a tritoning cello.

The thought carries:
The six of us
are an atonal sextet
of numbness and refusal,
dread, attraction, the works.
Around us, the whole room
is phthalocyanine green,
blue shade.
Therapist's preference,
probably calming,
soft music in the eye,
and it almost works.

But instead I am lost
in new haircuts,
in leggings ripped
behind the knee,
in the way a lamp
hunches over like an ibis.

Anything to avoid it,
anything not to admit it,
admit that despite years of this,
years of looking out
the high window into
the red riot of Farragut Square,
years of forcing myself
to say terrible
and incriminating things
while rain and snow
attacked the window,
I am still sick with feelings
where I must belong to someone,
must be deeply known,
or else I've never been
anything at all.

The Lion’s den- Dookwon Iswamaf.      Autobiography of the poet.                      

Born in Mali, year 2006 December 22 grew up with his father after the tragic death of his mum. Then at age five (5), travel to Sierra Leone upon the call of the mission of the unification church, where he faced a lot of tremendous challenges and obstacles as a result of the ugly damage of the organization.                
       The poet attended the Evenly’s Royal Academy for his primary level and continued his secondary studies in the Dr David Arnold high school, then finally sat his WASSCE exams at the ST. Ambrose Academy.                                                                

Dookwon’s motive for writing this poem is to systematically appeal about the past sufferings and struggling that mankind ****** at his face, and the gain of once achievements after going through deadly hardships in a chaotic environment.         Soon in odds of these request, on the 1st of October 2024 at age 17, he made a resolution of writing this poem.                    
                  

The Lion’s den.  

Stilled in the land of war,  
Built with shadows and darkness,  
Dressed with narrows and thorny paths.  

Trials and tests are no fail.  
Oh you stubborn boy, Malian born.  
Rains and sun-rays strike from plants;  
Warriors grieved  
Their own swords.  
The cloudy night and dangerous storms  
Far from over.  
Peace and love are far from reality.  
Oh you stubborn boy, Malian born.  

The den clothed in the Red Sea,  
Painful laughter and cries are known for us.  
The fearless monks appeal for bloodshed;  
Smiles the tyrannic’s impure dance.  
The last days we await.  
No more.  
Oh you stubborn boy, Malian born.  

The white doves are fierce fighters,  
The underdogs.  
And as for the plants on the sad height,  
The sun rays will come,  
And the wounded fruits will tell  
On the battle of the fists.  
Oh you stubborn boy, Malian born.  



Contexts analysis  

The background of the poem revolves around an unacceptable agony raining in a certain environment. To the extent,  the poet registered a note of protest where by the entire area of land is view as having been drowned into a great disaster called the Red Sea as illustrated in line 13 of the poem.   However, the protagonist serves as a voice of laments and regrets against the the unfairness and injustice behaviors manifested in this awful environment.                          
     So therefore in claim of these ugly satire, and negative metamorphic images like “blood shed”, shadows and darkness”,red sea”, cloudy night and dangerous storms”,are all effective and strong enough to show the protagonist believability in comparing its to the “Lion’s den “.
              EVIL AND SUFFOCATION
The poem thematically reveals the ruthless actions of the tyrannic towards his  surbodinents, and how will it’s affect the sphere of the environment and thereafter.                    
        Furthermore, these evil practices and painful cries inflicted, were used to suppress and torture the lives of these prospective victims who are in pain and agony.          The Lion here demonstrated his evil and suffocating plans through the use of spiritual powers which makes him faroushed  and untouchable despite his evil nature. In this case, the people or masses of that land suffered fearful events, such as the death of honest blood, the delay of prominent destines, the decline of future generations, and the introduction of malefic objects in product of sebeh , charms and hamelets, witches pots etc in order to create more disasters and suffering than ever before.                            
         As mentioned earlier in the third stanza of the poem that....” The den clothed into the Red Sea, painful laughters and cries are known for us, The fearless monks appeals for blood shed, Smiles the tyrannic’s impure dance. The last days we awaits, No more”. The above quotations reminds us about how perishable and evil the environment looks like in an actual face especially with the lead of a ferocious and selfish actor.                    To continue, the poet further expresses his anger and frustration on the emotional anguish suffered by these innocent people in request of their bubbling dreams.  In other words, it is rather unfortunate that these ungodly and acquit scenarios played a vital role to the submission and degrading lives of these faithful servants, making the tyrannic too powerful and threat-full to  the successful reach of their flaming fate.                                                                
      So as a result, of this calamentical avenues the environment becomes miserable and perishable in an actual face, no sign of progress is seen in reality all we know are pathetic circumstances and detorating  features appearing our ways, leaving us to grieve in fear and to wait for the “last days “ as illustrated in stanza (3).                              
      THE EXPERIENCE OF BAD LEADERSHIP.                
Leadership is not a bed for roses, but should be a field of sacrifices. The ugly experience that goes with the gandeur of power is clearly illustrated in the poem.   As a result of missues and misrule of power a cleaver call is made for a major theme capture in the poem.             There fore, the protagonist further exposes the negative impacts played by this tyrants rule to the disadvantage of all sphere of life and the environment as a whole.                
      Historically,this tyrants lion exercises his superiority and dominance over these faithful servants through evil practices, dictatorship and authoritarianism.   Thus, major aftermaths of the tyrannical governance over this entire environment, is a horror of awful and shameful experiences in the venom of its regime. Effectively, the poet further re-established his sorrow and grieve on the “shadows and darkness “ encountered by these surbodinents in provocation of their golden dreams.
As a matter of facts, their longing goals were drawned into the “Red Sea” , leaving them to perish in pain and despair through evil manipulation in result of absolute power.                                                                Unfortunately though,they have seen and witnessed their lives, reputations, futures, and stars been destroyed under the alter of selfishness and greed, the poetic personnel theologically expresses the horrible and unacceptable agony pouring on this deadly zone, terrorizing the request for success and progress in the society.   This was clearly captured in the second stanza of the poem which reads” rains and sun rays strike from plants, warriors grieved, their own swords, (lines 6,7,8).                                     The above quotations also bring light to the horrific punishment injected in the lives of these members who where discriminated, deprived, bullied, and even depressed by this tyrannic lead.               The predicaments and sufferings (shadows) undergone by these loosing servants in the hands of this worthless and ruthless being has its infinetic consequences unto today’s era. This can also observe the probability of members loosing their faith, and also creating the use of violence and disharmony as it was logically proposed that “peace and love is far from reality”.                
       Despite these ungodly experiences, the poet also regards this part of the poem as a test for these brave warriors to persevere, endure and maintain faith for the “last days” to answer their tearful prayers.                  
In sincerity, these vibrants mens before the catastrophe were aiming for prosperity and development in the land, society, and nation as a whole, breaking through their lives endeavors . The speaker nervously confirms that these imperishable hopes should remain at the corner of their bleeding hearts, for the day to achieve freedom and succeed as it was proclaimed “ And as for the plants on the sad height, the sun rays will come”.                                          Another consequence of this chaotic scenarios is dictatorship and authoritarianism. The poem is a protest poem chronicling the peak of terrors by which members with the environment were wantonly abused, spoiled and exploited by this ironic lead. The background of the poem is drowned from the 2012 change of Leadership in the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification in Sierra Leone, which set up the heat for members to be arranged in hierarchal form with their leaders in each regions of Heavenly Africa. This part therefore serves as a voice of reason and condemnation against the injustice and unfair treatment meted against these members, by this superiors. The poet executively proclaims that, the entire area of land is viewed as terrifically deadly and destroyed when he reveals that “stilled in the land of war”, describing the Kind of hardships and obstacles designed in the midst of its atmosphere including all sort of discriminations and fake documentaries pasted on the lives of these members, in protection of this communist failure’s “impure dance”. To the extent, bribery and corruption to some higher ranks of this organization created an oath for embezzlement and self interest crucially detecting  a lead to failure and crisis in the land.
            Finally, as a result of this upsetting circumstances, the poet justifies the uses of trials and tests in the poem as a course of this failing actor bringing life to all sarcastic events in the “ den” which chases prosperity and development far away from human imaginations as a result of its deadly and chaotic nature.
                THE STRONG DESIRE FOR SUCCESS.    
Despite these disgusting scenarios suffered by these inferiors in the hands of this communist monster, the poet emphasizes on a sign of courage that these members will greatly succeed through this horrific conditions and they will do so in memories of those affliction in which their innocent blood is shed for the sake of growth and development: as it was impressed in stanza 3”The den clothed into the Red sea,painful laughters and cries are known for us, the fearless monks appeals for blood shed”(line 14 and15).                                                      
         As introduced earlier in the second theme that, these innocent victims before the disaster were living in a strong desire for greatness guided by progress of purpose through their lives endeavors. The speaker further confirms that these miserable servants of that land will emerge as a great personalities that can help greatly in Our “Heavenly Parents” providence in the future and will attain there golden dreams as he describes them as “plants” in the poem meaning prominent individuals.
         The poem continuously surveys the dotted amount of redemption left in the consciousness of these honest bloods and further prescribe that” And as for the plants on the sad height”, the sun rays will come”( line 22 and 23). The protagonist then continued to raise a claim on the torture and emotional anguish which he feels about this pathetic land and it’s intolerable situation which is vividly evident in the burning tears of the poem.                
   In the poem’s concluding stanza, Dookwon reiterates these helpless slaves will that they should conquer the obstacles through this dead zone and wait for the right moments called the “last days “.
    IMAGERIES AND SYMBOLISM.
So as it identify in the poem, lines (1-5) can be considered as the poet introductory paragraph and lines (6-21) as the narrative, and finally lines (22-25) is the poet’s end of speech.                                                      For example, “stilled in the land of war” create a definate precision about this environment deadly aspect and struggles about it’s life sphere. And the second phrase says “ Built of shadows and darkness” symbolizes the sufferings and struggles implanted in these humble servants avenues and the unfortunate outcomes for their agonistic paths.
           Another important imagery is “rains and sun rays are strike from plants, The cloudy night and dangerous storms, Far from over” lines (6,9-10). The above rewards the shocking caious displayed by this tyrants rule in order to cease all success and progress in hand of this prominent( plants) as he taniches their reputations to the HQ of it’s movement.
         Anxiously, the significant must be mentioned as (line 13,14,15-16) that delivers the chaotic and unbearable calamities befallen the land, as a result of the tyrannic’s impure dance implied in the “den”.(“The den clothed into the Red Sea, Painful laughters and cries know for us, The fearless monks appeals for blood shed, Smiles the tyrannic impure dance”).
    According to the poetic views of it’s concluding stanza, a minimum amount of hope is detected in the bleeding grasses of this chaotic land for the “ last days “ to bring in the light that chases the darkness through a trapping tunnel as it’s precisely says”And as for the plants on the sad height, the sun rays will come, And the wounded fruits will tell on the battle of the fists”( line 22,23-24).
            DICTIONS OF WORDS
This part of the poem reminds us about the choice of words used to express the grief the poet. In addition, the form of the poet is pathetic in nature.
Moreover, the poet’s expression and choice of words used to describe the environmental catastrophe is sensitively declared through these choices of words:
Darkness- sufferings
Shadows - struggles
Rains - progress      
Sun rays- success
Plants- prominent individuals
Warriors- ordinary masses
Swords- hope                            Cloudy night- discrimination
Dangerous storms- criticism
Red Sea - Disasters
Painful laughters- Evil mockeries
Fearless monks- Elders
Blood shed- Evil sacrifices
Impure dance- malefic games           The last days- The ultimate change   The white doves- The corruptive leaders
The underdogs-The underrates
Wounded fruits - unborn generation
Battle of the fists- The story.
      TONE OR MOOD OF WRITER
The protagonist’s mood in writing this poem is dearly testified by the poem’s drastic metaphors, causing the poet to become mourning , sorrowful, and hopeful in writing this poem.
       SETTINGS AND STRUCTURE OF THE POEM.
“The Lion’s Den” was set in Sierra Leone, Freetown at night by 20:00(GMT) in the rainy season
Date:1st October 2024.
          STRUCTURE OF THE POEM
The poem is made up of 4 stanzas with 25 lines. The first stanza is a quintet which includes five lines. The second is a septet, which is also for the third stanza. And the last stanza consist of six lines which is called a sextet, the poem is also consist of epic proportions and inward rhymes creating a tension of despair in this context. Eventually, the poem is known as an ugly satire because of it’s pathetic nature.
       POETIC DEVICES
Alliteration:this is found within the first line of the poem showing the reputation of the sound of”w”showing the weight of war.Alliteration is also find in line (4) which says “Trials and Test are no fail” emphasizing the use of “t”.         Finally line(10) collect the repetition of “f” by declaring far from over.          Metaphor:is found in the second, thirteen and twenty second lines in the poem which detect “ built of shadows and darkness,the den clothed into the redsea, the sun rays will come “.        
Symbolism:line 3__”dressed with narrows and throny paths”.                  
Paradox:as unsealed in line(4) of the poem with the words “trials and tests” describing the inevitable challenges in that landscape.                    
Personification:in the various lines it’s has been examined of personification things and places giving human qualities in order to create a most intense and pathetic atmosphere starting with lines:6,16
and 24 which says that “rains and sun rays are strike from plants, smiles the tyrannic’s impure dance,and the wounded fruits will tell on the battle of the fists”.
Imagery:invoked in the first,third, seventh,ninth,twenty-third, and twenty fouth lines of the poem symbolizing a forbidden atmosphere in that entire land scape.
Metonymy:found in line (8) of the poem as it’s reads “their own swords” symbolizing war in a form of lies against innocents souls.
Juxtaposition:”peace and love is far from reality,The fearless monks appeals for blood shed”...( line 11-15). Showing the contradiction of the writer’s world.
Contrast:The juxtaposition of(rains and sun rays coming together implies the duality of hope as noted in line 7.
Oxymoron:this is juxtaposed in line 14 which appeals that “painful laughters and cries are known for us”. This creates joy and sorrow at the same time in the poem.
Ambiguity:
In line 17 we can see that both the end of sufferings and finality is aimed for in the phrase as it’s claims that”The last days we awaits “ suggesting a ******.
Irony: in terms of this figurative device we clearly observe such in line 20 where in the protagonist uses the white doves as an irony in order to manifest the contracting actions of these corrupt leaders who hereby contribute greatly to the destruction of the providence.
Characterization: these is updated from line 21 which creates an oppressive tone uploaded on the lives of these members making them to feel rejected and worthless as the poet declared them as “underdogs”.
Repetition: Declared in line (5,12,19,25) giving a deadly impression about an entire landscape who sounds been in a great explosion as he repeatedly sounds his identity and nationality in sign of regrets.

       POEM’S RESOLUTION

This story peaks out the saying that “After the tunnels is the sunshine”i.e In all stages of life, there’s no success without tears.