it is on the lush slopes of this Mount of God
that new songs of affliction sear the nights.
the bull frogs of the malarial swamps croak
not to their reluctant mates but to the sky.
the swamps are now smelling of dead men...

Decembers storm Europe in slow motion
Birds then desert the air as do all insects.
Not a wind graces the air, no wind at all...
Leaves brood without a dance, no dance
and trees stand still mimicking phone poles...

Neighbour X had attempted yet again to kill their new mother. This time he had come with a creaking wooden barrow, a sugarcane machete and a gunny sack. He had shouted his intention to chop her into cabbage-sized chunks of flesh then wheel the remains in the plastic gunny sack to the new village police post to report his crime of revenge...

Midnight will approach amidst song and sound
as the darkness below becomes more feminine
and like Berbera herself speaks of her mystery
or her forbidden memory or her forgotten glory.
A tiny voice comes into you - Berbera's voice...

We, the people, record in the annals of regret
That in the year of our Lord early 2008
The ears of corn, wheat and millet
Dried in the blood drenched valleys...