OBSEQUISE

In this moonlight milky mood
I penned my brood…

The wailing hearse cried a slowed silence
Pent–up petrifaction brewed in blurred draught
And the dawn shaded a dark attendance
The chronometer ticked for the last respect.

The casket carved a lucid opulence
A waft of affluence smoked the heavy draft
Restless crave, tears and the coffin acrobatic dance
Hungry hasty eyes eyed the torso death pecked.

His living rest was a broken bed and bed-bugs
The house he lived was a poverty chance-
The children railed far to return on his rust
And it came to pass…His time…

In couture, lavender soaked laid the corpse
Such fads were scarce for his appearance
When he had his breath in his wrinkled dust
But now, it is his gathered grime.

They wept…They must weep the weeps
In pure pretence of pity and nugatory nods
How they loved him to have gone…
Their prided shame beyond the clouds…

The dust was thrown in petulant peeps
What a life of odds?
There, are the sons’ sons who neared not his sun
Attired in ‘ADIEU BABA’ amidst the crowds…

Life goes on! Life must just go on
On the meadows of feasting tarpaulins
Finger flicks flaunted fresh minty fragrance
On faces lighted with strange happiness.

Praises of the rich son
For the deceased face, did the runnings
For the casket bought from France
And the rare gem laded from River Ganges.

Mouths munched meaty pieces a many
But the cadaver had just a plate and a spoon
The cassava grain was his saving grace
And the sanctified groundnuts in the lepers’ wood

He was not remembered for a penny
How come the strange bounty at his full moon?
Food and plates in amazing displays
Lost into the abyss of human hood.

And it all ended…
As sundry and all returned
Neat and drunk for the libation of the dead
Here once lived is once desolate.

Why these heads wrongly headed?
Why cared only when dust is turned?
For the breath that borne their born and bred
Why celebrate neglected exit in glorious plate?

In this sunlight shone, shining soon
I shall birth my brood…