Reign of the Quisling-Rodents

DOUALA

25 Of yellow water Fetched in Douala, and Leave to simmer for three generations and seven minutes Then put a handful Of chopped malversation and Stir for a hundred years and twelve seconds. Add two lumps of rapacity-scented Anglophobia and Leave to boil in privation for Ninety-four decades three minutes and then Serve hot N.B For optimum savouring at table Meal must be served Alongside a drink Of boiled headache in an earthen cup DOUALA The mist of travail Hazes over January dawns Souls in silhouette hit the road In the early-morning rush To slavish places of jobsites Then one o’clock…! Afternoons drenched in sweat; Time for the usual scuffle with sultriness When men hopelessly kick the air, Suspended in the smothering hold Of the vexed sun In Bonaberi, at the foot 26 Of a Himalayan dump – where a woman in red headscarf Squats in a quickie of urinary relief – A ragged urchin ferrets for lunch Afflictions come to a head for these Leech-infested siblings of mine; accursed sons Of a gelded soil; these thousand and one faces Uniformed in the fabric of glum looks; These countless gaits Held in place to a shamble By the gravitational pull of privation And hunger connives With solar anger to make the famished mistake A slender mirage on the road For a serpent across the tarmac PAIN Another moon dies As they say No pay. Seated by her three-stone fireplace A needle-like housewife and her broomstick issues Await the simmering little pot – Of scanty maize grains and weevil – to cook See what abjectness Is reflected in the waters Of this river Taking its rise From my eyes, ...