The day I would have lost my mother - Jennifer Dafwat.

Note: To download the audio recording of this poem delivered beautifully by the magnificent Jennifer Dafwat... http://picosong.com/2saR

The day I would have lost my mother
Began as all others
Unseeming, uneventful
Except for those prayers whispered
For all I know
For those I love
All so naive about the rest water the day held
But on all it poured
Extinguishing lives
Drenching wills,
softening hearts
Hardening others
This ode too long to tell

The feeling hit me
Like spikes to the heart
As life from blood flowed
Epitomes of costly arrays
Flayed off carcasses
Off beauties and tans
Making all so sweet
So revolting.

The day I would have
Had me saying I haven't
Thought of worn out spirits
Snatched all too soon
In moments faster than batting eyelids
Placed lids over pots we'll never drink off
Eyelids bat
Opening only to the nocturnal
Activities we of this flesh will for now
not partake in
Pain listless
A blankness in my head and heart
I know not what to call.

Days after
The carnage is still a lingering taste
on everything we touch
Everything we open ourselves to
Everywhere we set our feet for
Streets once alive with cat calls
Sellers wooing buyers
Buyers courting sellers
"Wanting to" buyers
Passing by
Biased or prejudiced
From it all
Sprang the pit fall
That pitched all
Against forces that take much…

Standing at this autumnal column
Looking at what lies ahead
Seeing more of what laid past
Brazen streets now ashen
Inactivity
Thoughts,
dead ghosts,
Now living the activities of this city center
Once a place of constant movements
Twice hit with fatal blows
Somewhere in my mind; I try to picture
If men and women
Will give to buying and
Selling of wares
On streets that are
Streets that were?

When I would have lost my mother

Happened one Monday
Somewhere between afternoon and mid-evening
Disrupting midday Pukam of the Mangus
Calling Ngas from her Forri
Jarawas from their Tere
Berom from plates of Gwote
Challa from mouth watery bubal
Tarok from enjoying Amora
As Plateau caved in
Making space for graves
That sounding of the afternoon gong
that tells of doom
Calling all
To a matter to dire
To wait
As we turned to the twist of fate
That called our loved ones to early beds
Beds hard and cold
The harsh reality of mortal beings.