Ayei Ibiang
@ayeiibiang080407
1 year ago

TALES OF THE VANQUISHED

So at dusk we count our losses;
a mound of shields and spears
Corpses of thousands up in flames,
we sob in grief whilst we stare

The smoke of burning sting our eyes,
with tears rolling down our cheeks
Whiffs of memories on ascension,
of the souls that we fought to keep


Now on every lip the question of
worth is heard
The war needless, if we may,
when the living is joined to the dead

So gold fades into ash and rubies
into stone,
for the house of many have returned a few
The gleefulness of children unheard
in the courtyard;
the streets, a catacomb to the view


Here the orphans whimper before
crude graves,
as respect turns to dishonour:
Their unskilled hands making jest of
the lowered,
some fingers out of the sand
- at the corners

Mothers unconsolable on heaps,
Misery sitting beside her dead child wailing
It's chaos upon this rubble,
her faintheart has started its cruel journey
of failing


The returned are a shadow of their
former selves;
of ghosts stuck in the hollows
Their silence, a fog;
gloom, a dog, that twirls and follows

For tonight has dawned with the
embers of men,
and with the light of them it has prospered
The slain bearing the curse of our
weighted feet,
upon the very ground they were
slaughtered



***





Written by: Ibiang, Ayei Okoi
Monday 11th April, 2022.
11:21am
#Aï
#Nirclestories
#Poetry