Thabo Lehlongwa, A Poem

For those who die with voices of the unborn,

Hearts tremble at alters of memory you build.

Wails that char their chests –

Linger with embers of your faded hymns.

What sarcasm cases their shadows –

Who else’s soul can be trapped in word?

Your blank gazes at their past often sobers despots in tatters,

They house the bereaved who find solace in your cursing truths.

You recoil snakes under pillows of our affluence, and we beg –

The miserly stroke to touch and sunder our war-torn fortresses.

Falsity is a tower most build around your being, but only weary minds dwell in the maze that is you.

Your brevity soils loin-cloths of even their puritan guises. US.

Those to whom your fire ransacks - US, cathedrals of your architecture.