GAM WRIT ERS

By Lenrie Peters

The first incision

leaves the body never quite the same

the broken window-pane

gales, frost, the sweet insouciance of pain.

At the inception

we traverse Bluebeard's mansion

open to all; except the last door

the final flaw

Though battle scarred

shut out, the bending strain

of rags upon my back

I would not alter track.

I go, Return to the

Infinitude of my consciousness

its disarray of monuments

where no trespassers come

I would not speak the word

heavy on every lip, sprewed out;

though sunsets blaze in my heart

the voice chokes with longing

Love you have conquered the world

held mankind in chains

slippery disguise of a word

impaled upon a cross.

The old man in a dungeon

what does he understand

or roving legs bedrenched

on Hampstead Heath

Okigbo for love of tribe ?

Where now your jewelled talent

roaring at the door Soyinka

for love of principle ?

I have seen much of tears

dangling willows at the water's edge

but no abiding pledge

the black rose will be fed.

No tortures of flesh can touch you now

approximate to the fires of the heart

which has roamed the confines of death,

seen outlines of immortality.