When Love is a Raw Country - Poems by DMD Goodhead
- By D. M. D. Goodhead
- Published October 29, 2007
- Poems
- Unrated
D. M. D. Goodhead
D. M. D. Goodhead. has a Bachelors in literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from the University of Washington. He won third place in the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright literary competition in 1999. He will be concluding his Ph.D. in literary theory and criticism in June 2008. In addition to theory and criticism, Goodhead's other areas of interest are African and African Diaspora Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Theatre and moviemaking.
View all Entries by D. M. D. GoodheadTroubadour
I have sung
Like a troubadour
In the Towns square
Of my own
Being.
It is so
Dark in here.
It is depressing.
The fog rises,
And falls
Like a simple
Wave.
And the sun,
Where is it?
Light from
A lighthouse
Penetrating
The fog?
Love
Is death.
Love
Is life.
I have sung
Like a troubadour
In the Town square
Of my own
Being.
Pain is.
Love is.
The heart’s bowstring
Tightly wrung.
It explodes
Like a geyser.
Sorrow.
Joy.
Life.
I have sung
Like a troubadour
In the Town square
Of my own
Being.
For my love
Is a distant
Star
Grappled
With
Like
A throbbing
Vein.
In the heart.
Emotions
I am torn apart like a lion
tears apart his prey.
I am drowning in a flood
of powerful emotions. O God, save me
from this scourge, save me from the flagellations
of love. Save me from the hard taskmaster.
Save me from the unending cry from the depths.
O God, help me put the bit to my emotions,
lest I drown in this raging flood, and my sun,
now a vagrant on the narrowing river,
sets ere it has danced in the cool Autumn of the Western skies.
Emotions (II)
O love is an unforgiving taskmaster.
O love is a slave driver that does not know
when to stop. O love is the bully that punches
the hapless little kid in the face until he is sore,
bleeding and crying. O love is a ship sinking
at sea without a single lifeboat. O love is a meat grinder
that grinds away at the vital parts. O love is madness,
when madness is walking on a bed of fiery six-inch nails.
O love is winter with no provision for the homeless bum
on the streets. O love is like deep sorrow, when deep sorrow
is the only clothing on one’s back in the eye of a severe winter.
O love is a long, hard day, a long, hard day that grinds mercilessly on.
Curse it, love it, but love is no warm blanket, when the beloved
is fleeing the heartland of the bleeding heart. Curse it, love it,
but love will scourge and scourge until it has run its wasting course.
When Love is a Raw Country
I have wandered, wandered on the highways of desolation and loneliness.
I have cried my emotions raw until my heart is bleeding like a fish
tossing out his life on the banks of a desolate island.
I have wandered into lonely places and forgotten boxes,
dreary buildings assaulting the skyline of a deserted city.
I have thrashed and tossed in my sleep and wrestled with a thousand
demons.
I have erupted out of the deep blue sea gasping for air, and seen nothing
but the face of a dreary sky on the weeping face of the deep blue sea.
I have waited for the cargo to come in until the port is deserted
& empty of all life. I was at the waterside when the fishermen left
in the belly of the night for the high seas, and was still there, when
they returned with their canoes laden with the loot of the sea.
I am a palm tree shed of all life standing at a spot at the waterside
where the river never comes in anymore, where the water crabs
never visit anymore, where the land crabs carry their burdens
like old men fleeing a plague-ridden city. My head is full of water;
it is a coconut that bounces from hilltop to hilltop. And my eyes
have seen better years, they are sad with the grayness
of a weeping sea. O God, my heart bursts on the banks of this desolate
waterside. Help, help, help, that I may retrace my way from the mourning sea.
Life is too much to spend on the waterside all day long, all night long,
like a colony of crabs, marching here and marching there,
but marching nowhere all day long. O God, O God! marching nowhere all day long.
The Birds have Gone Away
The birds are not chirping in the trees
Anymore. They used to chirp in the trees
Beside my window, all day long, all night long.
They used to sing, sing, and never sleep.
The birds used to sing, sing, all day long, all night long.
They used to sing, sing, and never sleep.
But the birds sing no more in the trees beside
My window. & the trees are now like a deserted land,
No a cemetery. Not even the cheer of spring
Will bring back the birds. Not even the cheer
Of the early morning sun will bring back the birds.
The birds have gone away, all victims of a ferocious sorrow.