Guest Poem for Introspection: memory too forgets by tosin gbogi
i
how does a seemster singe his country
without threading into treason
how does he say his mind
without losing his mind
how does he singe for instance bars
behind which bards were banished to rest
of the kindly hearts of hope, muzzled
by cassowaries wandering with letters of death
of the evenings hence that dissolved like mist
faded into darkness
and the seagull cries
shaded into sadness
ii
time stands unblinkered as a pillar of witness
between that night and this twilight, the same
bastards who looted the barns
yanked the yams off their resting earth
how does a seemster look and see, singe the same
soldiers, the same barracks
not that the one has gone and the other has remained
but that both hanker after a frozen mission of tyranny
after the same manure
fertilizing silence
the same manicure
mangling nails, mangling wails
and a single alkyd, a single script
from which were painted plans for yesterday crypts
into which, without parole or mercy
dissent was holed up to die
iii
to choose between a jester and a despot
that is the question
in a season of murder
when forgetting strangles history once again
how really does a seemster singe this unreason
without losing his reason . . .
_______________
Tosin Gbogi is the author of the tongues of a shattered s-k-y (2012).
I’m so appalled by this poem, if “appalled” can be used positively.