by Noel Ihebuzor
Short and simple – for the battered and abused –
“and the moon cried herself dark the night you battered me, the silent stars sobbed and the heavens rained tears….and frowned at your flowers of appeasement”
Flowers, presents, clumsy sluggish contrition
Wham, bang, in, out and over
Short, quick and simple
And with this short and insensitive flourish,
this contrived contrition
failings are expected to be deleted, even denied and wiped clean
the slate is made clean, ready for fresh battery to be scribbled on it…
A ritual of voluntary and selective amnesia
is once again re-enacted
on an over-burdened and traumatized victim….
this abused, reduced, confused object
this ravaged, ripped off, ripped up,
this maligned, denied, defiled piece of womanity
One for whom there is no longer peace
and life together empties her of all reason and rhythm,
save a rhythm rich in thuds and thumps
which deflate the soul
The camel’s back is strong but growing sore
and the woman’s soul initially deep and rich
is now growing raw and red and full of rage….
the seasons they come and they go
and the woman’s hopes for change
soar and crash with each season
the seasons weigh hard
soon the back is bent with sorrow
as the eyes are baggy with worry and self pity
slowly she counts her beads of sorrow
as she bids her time
as her soul beats and looks beyond the cage that is her existence
(somewhere in the hard-soft corridors of truth,
mute angels ask in a mixture of angst and empathy
“ how do pearls get thrown to swine,
and beauty to the constant stings of scorpions?”)
the mighty strong ignores the hunger and needs of the dove
and the soul, beautiful but trapped by ugly cruelty
agonizes with each passing day,
imagination and ideals slowly ebb away
hollow emptiness eats away the inside
the calm soul before, now battered by the staggering immaturity of the powerful,
by the still born imagination and emotional aridity of a partner
a clod, insensitive and immune to logic beyond the brawn,
beyond the mighty fist, the rod, the muscle
each day the soul is mangled by pangs of regrets
of an alliance without spice, without rhythm, colorless
and the once bright eyes are now sunken
dazed by impunity and slowly sucked under by her powerlessness
and the indifference of those around
and the clouds gather and darken, and swell…
and swell and soon to burst into homicide
and the partner blames the spouse,
the victim is the aggressor
and the partner massages an ever swelling ego and self-righteousness
with the puerile glee of the mentally challenged,
like one caught in the stasis of frozen and retarded adolescence
“and the moon cried herself dark the night you battered me, and the silent stars sobbed and the heavens rained tears….and all frowned at your flowers of appeasement”
Reflections 