The streets of London are littered with
Broken back men
Muscles and sharp brains structured to menial jobs
Like the valley of dry bones
Shall these ones rise again
Alas there will be no dead.
New York is littered with the blood of bold men
Eyes which must not gaze at the Policeman
Straight shoulders pulled and bent to the concrete
Can I be me without you being pale
Could we all be gold on the setting sun
On the twilight screen that brings the dead to life.
The majesty of the bronze stallion is now taken away
Saddled by the marauding officer but her bushy tail still sways
She is called great but not in the wilds and plains
Her mouth is muzzled and reigns over her head
Her huffs of hide is cased in iron shoes that cling and clang
Sniffing and keeping the decaying me from smelling.
For herself and yet against herself
They throttle the street and dark alleys of my trespassing desperation
On their trails are the eyes of sunken skulls
In the ghettos of Salamat The Niger Delta and The Bight of Biafra
Crude and rusted rigs lay clogged in sea of coral reef
Alas there will be no dead.
Must the chains crank on the force of difference
The potentials on which these tectonic plates grind
Their dark clouds of sacrilege now tower like babel
Over the layers of the ozone they grin at their colourless rainbow
With no one language they said not Truth
Their smoke go not to heaven.
The sacrifice of Abel came to heaven
It was like a fragranced moist smoke
Pure like the morning dew
His heart was simple but his blood cried
Of Cain’s New York and Pilate’s London
His gains made on my people’s back.
The streets of London are littered with broken back men
New York is littered with the blood of bold men
Cornrows with deep furrows ploughed on my back
Please can I come back without making you pale
Can we all be gold on the setting sun
On the twilight screen that brings the dead back to life.
Listening and Creative Communications
Leonard Chintua-Chigbu