THE DEATH OF EUROPE
Her lyre rots unplayed by countrymen,
Sovereign Queen half-sleep, watches
the diseased sceptre of the Great Empire.
her enlightenment torches, clouded
by a miasma of complacency, die
as peasants and Cambridge elites
cheer on Thames bank.
The boat race has ended, the camera is dead
past glories run to the pod – to hibernate.
The devil’s tears beneath Arabian deserts
is angst and barters with long stifled ire,
cards crush under cheap Chinese shoes;
above the table a new rule is blessed.
Days of opium for sugar are long buried
and Africa: yesterday’s pot of hope,
bleeds gold and diamonds no more:
her ravenous striplings
guard her stores day and night.
She is pregnant with the world – again.
Europe’s holy sins butcher like graffiti
bathing on sighs of awaited tumult
the calabash is broken, the pot leaks
the past has risen to rob the present
of a glorious mat spread on mire.
With World War laurels dirty and torn
the Union eats the hands of democracy
jotted on fading sovereign titles and notes,
twenty seven bouncing boys yesterday – now
they close their eyes one by one – to everlasting rest.
Richard Oduor Oduku ©2013
richardoduor.wordpress.com 