The Mendicant Of Yeruwa

Water is a blessing to this baked earth
Insatiable from birth…

Armed for the feast of the Tabasky
Mark how even the Joshua tree observes
This double-bent figure –
Putchist-turned-mendicant

Out of the depth of a threadbare bag
An ever-empty bowl, beseeching.
The seed has been sown
A positive move plunges him into reveries
Of his troubled dawn
Punctuated by showers of Allah’s benediction

The contrary unleashes his forked tongue
Which slices the air, the heart too

He moves on
With his army of flies.


P.S Yeruwa is a quarter in Garoua, Cameroon.



Coup d’ Etats in Africa

There’s a coup d’état
New persons impose themselves to-night
And take into their hands - the Power –
To wreck the ship-of-state
Give a dog a bad name, then hang it.
Thy throne’s thy grave…
A young snake kills its mother
Yet, it ain’t different
Déjà vu, I’d say
As a dishonest saint replaces another
Is this our fate the Second Coming?


(c) Dzekashu MacViban