Ushered

 

Look at your hair, my man

what have they done to you?

They take it and braid it with mud

they take it to smother with blood

they spit in your face, cough in your nose

and drive their toes in your shins

 

I remember

you used to laugh

to let the tears out of your eyes.

You used to enjoy the sensation

of salty droplets, only now

you look to your nails,

encumbered by crumbs of cocaine

to draw the curtains across

your eyes,

embarrassed, and fearful

of lamentations

 

Where once

that deity of the sun

did hold your enamour and fixation,

just now serves to seize you,

and bind you into madness

cooking you up for the moon

 

Thus now

you are a product of the night –

harbour of the wicked and the colourful

yet colour cannot see

in the dark

and so you are destined

to stay lonely, destitute

and breathless,

shuddering in darkness

and hanging from the teat

of the blackness