FATE OF A FALCON

FATE OF A FALCON

I crossed the Baltic sea
To come here.
London bridge.
5th September,1991.
My nest in Zlatibor
Was a sea bed of white balls,
Lush green leaves, sprawling hills.
As a seedling,
I and my grey-haired oracle,
Toil soggy fields
With hoes and machetes
Harvested strawberries,
Blue berries and squashes.
My beauty
Had breathed her last air,
Shortly after my first cry.
A sword's edge on my balloon.
But my backbone
Would pat on my back
The soft touch of a morning dew
On fragrant roses.
“The ball of fire will glow.”
He whispered.
Though a banana stalk
Oozes putrid smell
Of maggots and grubs.
Empty cases,
Wintered fields.
Vultures feasting on ravens.
Dark skies.
Thunder clasps.
Bread crumbs on Lazarus’s table,
Corpses,
A falcon dumb to a falconer.

A WRETCHED EARTH

Harvesting marshy potatoes
Was all we knew.
Me and my cotton wool hair tower
Started by cutting the crown
Then wrestling the earth with hoes.
A tough turf
The wretched sods
Stained our hoes with black mosses.
We dug from dusk to dawn
Like a beaver
Chewing down trees.
Even bright red cardinals
Nudged their feathers
On wiry grasses
In spirits,
Sounding cheer, cheer, cheer!
But when we gathered
Twelve baskets full
Of potatoes in Owan,
They smelt of rot
Acrid and damp
Crows and coyotes.
“Were these all we toiled?”
Molten magma.
My tower stared on
Waggling tail
Of a black dog.
We either pick
Or dig out graves.

The author, Joseph Marcel, Ikhenoba is a Biochemist by profession and a passionate writer. He has published several poems, articles and stories which have been published in Amazon, Poetry South, Active Muse, Short story.net, Poem Hunters, Core Humanity Commons, Academia.edu, Writers Space Africa, Goodreads, Afri-Library and Kinsman Quarterly. Semi-finalist for Black Diaspora Award, shortlisted for Natives Award, and longlisted for Iridescence and Dr. Paul Kalanithi writing awards in 2024. He likes sports, writing and scientific researches.