In The Shadow of Darkness

There is a beast with five heads that rummages the land.

It devours the earth that bore, burning the crops that feed us,

And eats away the season’s harvest;

When the farmer has broken sweat, it breaks his hoe to two!

We are helpless, we are hapless. How can we fight?

When everywhere we turn, it eats the road before us…

The one face it hides in the cushioned comfort of tinted four wheelers,

Without a care for the millions that suffer its apathy

As it feeds on their blood, its talons clawed deep so they won’t run.

It slumbers in exotic silk. Lumbers with exotic dinners-

Not a care to our famished bellies and tarpaulin housing.

The one head wears wigs and boots, pretends to be our friend

But puts us in iron cages each time we cry out,

Stifling our voices with a wild smile at the fall off its gavel.

It takes our sons in the dead of the night. Beats our old men with its sticks and guns.

And then it says, “I am here to protect you”

The other calls itself our voice- its sly arms wrapped tight round its rotund belly-

But one by one, our children die in cold hospitals jammed with the stench of

Hopelessness,

While those who survive are turned to vegetables in the schools they build.

Our produce rots on the bad roads it promised to fix. Still it is mute,

Lest it runs out of promises if it takes away the problems that bind our feet.

The one speaks of hope, wears celestial garments and teaches us foreign tongues-

‘We must keep our peace’ it says ‘this is not our home’

But how shall we keep our peace and bide this home without a name,

When we pay to build its house, and feed it with the sweat of our labour

While we are left with nothing but rags.

The one is the head without a face. The head we cannot see.

Its eyes are as many as ours. Its ears even more, reaching places even we cannot.

It is the thief that cannot be heard. The silent teacher…

It steals away the ways of our people, replacing them with those we cannot comprehend.

It is everywhere and nowhere. It is the heart of the beast!

© 2009