O fogo

Flames*
escape
blossoms’
lips
impatient
sharpened
fingertips
without
the bees
to bare
their fruits
the shade
of trees
deepened
dearly
slender written
with cancerous
roots
Mysteries
adult
toxic rain
ne’er a child
but a rotten brain
chattering gaily
among the corpses
scarce a drop of ripping
shame
wealth’s perfume
all should know
blood distillate
from the slain
in sweet malice flows
from martial mountains
to hell aglow
fired thirst
felicitous stench
with melted snow
in vile chalices quenched.

* 2018 seems another year to burn more homes at peace, but for decades the “white, white West” has roasted humanity with its craven addiction to slavery and war and profits, euphemistically called “economic growth”

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..