THE POET

When he sleeps

With him sleep

Child and cannibal

Together in the hutment

When he wakes

With him dance

Ghosts of horror

In the cemetery

He finds his spouse

In a heap of the dead

He burns in the taste

Tobacco gives

He turns glum

In toxic poems

Lions swell

Their mane in him

The poor victim

Dies in him too

His rhymes slither

Lust in a hole

Worms from battles

Creep in search of him

He has never written

A word of consolation

For those who fled

Battles for bread

He drank freely

From breasts blooming

With love of life

And chasing strife

His flowers are all

Wilted in meditations

Like tender grass

On footpaths

He never plucked

Flowers for lust

He frequently drinks

Oceans of lava

Then I look at him

And weep

At this he smiles

And says in tender tones

“Hi, I don’t know

How to drink the cool”

He never smells

Except a lazy bird

He always has been

An enigma to all