The coveted terebinth
has lost its leaves:
all appearance wilts
as light follows darkness
the thinnest red
chases after the sun –
behind it new days
of fratricide smoulder.
I look out on the failure of gardens
I’ve chosen, myself a garden
that no longer gives water.

What does it mean
seven women
clutching one man?
Help me
explain this –
when you toss riddles at me
not being
watered I
come up
with nothing.

Violence masses above us
like the mountain exalted
above the hills: no people has ever
beaten swords into ploughshares

yet in Manila Cory prays
for rebels who give roses and in Accra
behind the crumbling slaveforts
(one named longsuffering) a car
proclaims: Let us not hate Whites.