Of Old Leaders And Contorted Consciences Poem by Nyasha Gift Nyatsambo

I am now just but a ghost;

a sack of famished bones

enclosed only by a thin leatherly hide;

a dangling, flaking biltong of guilt



and yet once I was a towering giant

hovering eerily above,

heroic in my gestures

and aggressive in my victories



I was a king to few

and a god to many

who cowered cowardly at the sight of my scars.

I prided myself of winning wars

and the intrigue of my trickery



99 tricks I had

each furnished to thoroughly disable my foe,

shred him to the floor,

disregard the wails of the masses

and scatter the dust for all to see and awe



and so I stumbled-

yet my vanity forbade me from seeing

that my grave deep I had dug

with every fiery word I spat



"Shame, shame, shame! "

it thus came swiftly upon me

bitter as Job's trials

and searing like the flames of Joan



then - suddenly -

my eyes bore the fiery flash.

I had been blind all along!