The Point of Beginning

Cut through the crowd of sullen faces
With the grime the background defaced
The roads lead to highways and foothills
Further to the lands of tea and beer and opium
But barricaded it’s asphyxiating right down here.

It is dusk; just the right time to go, and when
The legal police recovers a grenade from Wallet
It only tells of money robbed by its master
The moral police gets hold of heroin from Anus
It only knows of discarded syringes at the Nambul riverbank.

Old people are sitting by the streetcorners
Their unknown protests are too much, the placards cry bleeding
Age is all the problem; everything was fine in old days
Even the sex was good devoid of HIV
Where the hell has all the bloody decorum gone, Ibe?

The further the road, the further it stretches with no qualm   
Yet the sullen faces are still galore, greasy setting
Unfulfilled promises of the hills and all such matters
While the masters go and service their reproductive organs
It’s time to take over but not before making their return impossible
  
When it is darker the view is becoming clearer
The roads lined with choicest trees, colourful
The water down a stream, embellish on its sides
If only the view was consistent on the road
We could have been wearing Beauty

Then the reverie breaks down;
Life could have been worth living
But no; even the ghettos tell different stories
Untold, yet not unknown
Multilayered, yet not undetailed

Off the road the lawmen arrested a teacher this morn
The charge: Walk in the trodden path; don’t deviate
While taking hopeless sides, obedient students and cops nod
And ironically, all of us sing about freedom
Like a day after, a courier service would deliver it.

It was not expected, things will be clearer in the dark
All along the ceaseless march had been a shortsightedness
The same road will take me back now — hopefully
Left with a limited choice
Look for a spot of fresh commencement.