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29 John Nkemngong Nkengasong My Birthday Party Thirty-three years above the earth my heart clock ticks like the senile sobs of a senior celibate thirty-three unruffled years of the dream slyly bar the gates of wanton youth and unlatch the doors to un-stirring darkness with one whore-kid and two grey hairs a spurious fortune and a fatty dream I’ve done naught, put no meaning in my life a poor memory and a keen vision these blessings of my birth are stale pregnant with prophesy, ink denies my flow what shall I tell the world this day having lived like a dry twig in the currents of Lebialem Falls. that like the Npkwe masquerade I’ll prance and fret on the arena and never will be heard again tarry, tarry, you hurrying feet of years slow down, you giant paces of infirmity till I’ve dressed my grave stone with immortal words. Requiem for Lady of State She’s dead and gone, beloved Mother I... Her soul buried in a coffin Her body walks the night In yonder forests of the South 30 Letters to Marion (And the Coming Generations) No woman showed much tenderness No heroine wept for a nation on its knees Would she come again to soothe with bile Now that she’s dead and gone She was the mirror of the state Our gloom, on her painted lips could see Beautiful when her fate was poor Ugly when fortune made her rich How dismal her lonely lunatic lover looks Much grieved with so great loss Of the better part of his heart Husband or matador, who’d wipe his tears Who’d soothe him in his dance of mourning feats Chased naked by the wretched kids Power clenched in his armpit, and the knife That carnaged the sweetheart of the state She will not come again, Lady of State On the day before Christ is born To throw on kids laced packets of plastic toys Pampering the toys and not the sickly babes She will not come again, loving Lady of State With her mighty widow’s mite to share To infants drabbed in mortal ailment To sneer at shrieking babes, touching none She’ll never come again, First Lady I…. Smiling with the wrong side of her mouth Loving our beautiful cities, and oh! Burning them all again with a fiery kiss She’s dead and gone, enchanting Lady I…. Her soul buried in a coffin Her body walks the macabre night In yonder forests of the South. ...

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