Major inJostice

I followed an English rose to the gates of the Sahel;
I thought I knew I loved her - I was young and couldn't tell

......all so long ago now I don't recall that well.


Enchanting child seductress, she sent my heart a'skip -
she never held much back and offered cupid's lips

.......but most of the attraction was the chance to make that trip.


For one more lunar cycle I was flown back to my Xen,
a place like I remember when I was only ten

.......Jos - just like Kabala, up-country way back when.


There I met her father, I thought he had no class -
full of british bullshit, weighed down with his brass

.......a Major in the army - more like a major arse.


Stifling market plateau heat, calico robes and levi strides -
Camel traders side by side with chinese toys and rayban'd eyes.

........he sent his 'boys' to watch our backs amid the hubbub and the flies.


To my shame I since forgot the names that walked with us,
from dawn til dusk - like mad dogs
with coats of laterite dust.

.........but I saw his darling's life to their care he did entrust.


With parchment throat from laughing, with these men of Niger' mirth
I said - "Please come inside" this man's house to quench our thirsts

.........but little did I know to them that was a first. 


Cricket gossips mocked the silent moment of surreal torpor.
The Major glared with strange confusion - first at me and then his daughter

.........and from the corner of my eye I caught her...


Looking at me like I was demented - as if my pulse should be felt.
In her pert chest the same cold void as in her sire dwelt;

..........frigid hearts in sultry heat stood hollow hard - refused to melt.







note: ...about a visit to Jos, Northern Nigeria in '86

Kabala is a town in the North of Sierra Leone

I didn't marry her....!