The Days Bleed Poem by Simpa Omoluabi

The golden swans come out at night
when the harbour sleeps;
they believe they tread
on the dark clouds of dreams
filled with shinning-children
that shall never make it…

The trees lean over
tousling their brown leaves
into the stream, swept gently
by a light breeze of miasma
before the night is made palpable
with fear from five gunshots,
and in swift responses houses quench
into dark dominions.
Nothing more is heard,
till the cockcrow brought to us
what those bullets did to a man
in a mess of his blood,
a cygnet distilled in a cyclone.

A little girl bleeds in her heart, her art;
a little girl makes beads from shards,
her hands bleed and she holds
her pains from trickling;
so the goats sang along a song
of their own coming down.

A stiletto pierces the navel of a nun
and her dress becomes so bright
like the crest of a cockerel;
she smiles ambiguously in her dying,
like equivocal moans.

The days are empty, and full with pity:
it revolts the dogs to be thankful
for bits from morsels,
for the heirs fall on their knees
to share the droppings.

An opulent smile,
a latent gossamer snares an antelope;
the foxes drinks milk from
the pope's nose,
I drank a storm
and the peaks emanate and apple-burns,
being the crimson source
of the helmet of fire; from it
the peak is given to they that
announce a new day.

A crone weeps, for her mates are dead;
she says now she is prone
to sleeping torments. She describes,
gesturing, what she saw of the future;
her voice is lost to what was seen
and her eyes were exposed with fear.


Copyright © 2009 The Days Bleed by Simpa Omoluabi