The Pythons Of The Town Poem by Tony Adah

The long things we feared
Came to town
Those long pythons we all dread
Those slow slithering pythons
Slowing the movement of the townspeople.

In the daytime they move in bits
That join and look like one from afar
And depending how wide the road is
They move in files of two or three
And blare horns snakes hardly do.

A village first timer in town
Viewed the pythons at night
From the fourth storey of a sky house
Some where in the town
And saw a file of long pythons
On the roads;
Flickering in gleams of red, yellow and white
Their eyes blinking doubly or singly
Depending on which way
They want to go.

It is a marvel to a first timer in town
Especially at night.
But the townspeople are used
To the pythons they no longer fear
Than dread the obstacles they make
That slow the movement of people and things.

Above the roads on the ground
Are the real pythons of the town
They look winding and crisscrossing
A maze that looks like the strands of sponges
Littered above the town;
The files here too flicker
In the hues of the ground ones
And blare horns snakes hardly do.

Everyday and every night
This is the colour of the town
And some slither through
The shoreline of the still standing blue waters
Replete with sea vessels berthing
In a busy harbour
While some are still
Others are coming or going.

Sometimes when the moon
Comes on at night
It cast its golden sphere
On the silent blue waters
Tossing and making the moon
To shake as if the poor grey sky
Was shaking on its own
And this where I want to be
Away from the dizzying and flickering
Pythons of the town.