In the Transition

Speeches by a president garbed in white
flanked by his brothers
to the left and the right.

Posters, pictures, banners, bunting
fire crackers crack and
the government is hunting.

The press is called
and a minister cries,
"you are a peddler of filthy lies.

We won the war
all fair and square
you saw it all, our press were there.

They lost the war
all right and tight
those terrorists ran out of fight.

Now they’re in camps
and you can’t go
until we sort out friend from foe.”

People speak in whispers.

The sound of fighter jets
is so loud I duck and cover
even if I shout
I cannot be heard.
Young men and women point
machine guns indiscriminately
as they know from experience
that anybody can be an assassin.
Walls studded with shards of broken glass
are crowned with barbed wire
and shod with sandbags
to protect buildings we cannot see.

People speak in whispers.

Emotions, like taste buds,
burned at the end of my tongue.
Like nerve endings,
they ran over my skin.