The Bitter Pill Poem by Chris Jibero

Deliberately hid I my head in the sand
in self delusion like an ostrich
to keep peace, thinking you would change
but swathed in shame in your despicable
displays splashed on me as a white garment
splattered with mud after a downpour
by clanging jalopies speeding through
a road overtaken by pot-holes
but the bitter pill that has cured
my self-inflicted blindness
had I painstakingly secured
and bravely swallowed
seeing you clearly as you are
and the bitter truth I now face like
a brave soldier in the thick of battle

Not a dropp of the love
you profess can be perceived
for what you parade
is but a ball of gall
with thin icing, hitherto served
to an unwary heart as palatable
cake to assuage a wolfish appetite

The Barrels of lies you pump
and supply daily like OPEC crude oil
cannot pass for love by any standard
for a serpent is not any man's
lover but that of self

Can you love
when you have become a general
drink, a dismal bottle of whiskey
passed round at a pauper's funeral;
when you are cocky, when you cannot endure
the load of pains love porters in a big
tray like a young Yoruba girl hawking Agege bread
in a hot humid afteroon
when you dive headlong into a ragging sea
to retrieve only a mere distraught bronze ornament
that is drowning with your love,
when you make your love a caricature
before an unfriendly world
when your love can fizzle out
like a dropp of oil in a hot frying pan?

Love there is not in that glazed
heart of yours but selfishness and greed
which you sell in large markets
where you and your innumerable customers
haggle to outwit one another.

(C) Chris Jibero.1991.