Friday, January 14, 2011

Uganda

Time,that horned and masked chameleon,

With bulging swivelling round eyes,

Stalks slowly forward till its sticky tongue

Strikes like a lightningbolt...


The dead man’s spirit lives on in his jawbone.

He moves through the long grass

Like a leopard.

His smile is wrapped in a red barkcloth shroud.


One twin is human, the other a python.

Their voices are waterfalls.

West through the forest,crossing two streams,

I go,emerging at the swamp

Of sitatunga and shoebill,

Then climb the hill to the shrine.


In the rainforest the chimpanzees are at war:

One tribe methodically exterminating the other,

Isolating and murdering the enemy

One by one.

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