Soldier-Skeleton Moving Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Soldier-skeleton moving
As a grey shadow
Grey and dark as
Moving rats
As stealthy
In those cemetery glooms
Where a line was drawn full
As yet
On so many dooms.

Now the onward march
Of their doom
That marched proud
While breathing was
A ruthless tank
And pitiless
Now moves not,
Stopped.
The doom of doom.

The earth does not open up
The heat throws up a fire
There be no humans
And no steps of Poet Seer

Even so
The cemetery and its inhabitants
Would share with the Poet Seer.

He made
A rite, sacred or not
Or relative:
For in his village they
Controlled destinies in fumes and
Smokes

For after all
Were not destinies transformable
As matter: energy their carrier
To fumes and smokes?

The self-confessed
Witch-doctor smoked his pipe
Muttered his words, syllables
As in other languages
His own?
As burnt as a tipsy man
He chanted.

For life
Be as of everything
No fairy tale for ever
Not just sweet talk
Play of sweet violins
Beauty enmeshed eyes of
Surprised dawns.

In
Those myriads of rows
Of tombs below
So much
So much
And spokes in the wheel
Need I list more?

Soldier-skeleton moving
As a grey shadow
Grey and dark as
Moving rats
As stealthy
In those cemetery glooms
Where a line was drawn full
As yet
On so many dooms.


The night is closing
The night is closing
Hurried shadows and figures
Slide
Often colliding.