Forgive me Lord, for I have spoken
Where the balm of silence would suffice.
I have snared darkened paths for a token
And my tongue has sown pain for a price.
Forgive me for I ate the kernel of silence
Where words would have paid the debt of a life.
A life is lost by the sword of my pretense:
I butchered a soul, with silence’ formless knife.
Forgive me, for I have fed my errant ear
With words drunk and heavy with lust.
Yes, I drank them like sweetened beer –
So now, I roam now in the wilderness, lost.
Forgive me for I heard and listened not
When, for my coins and crumbs, many wept.
I spared them not a a single passing thought,
Though a thousand loaves in my barn I kept.
Forgive for my eyes have sought, once and again,
The flash of flesh, the swing of lively swells.
I am a pig that wallows in the smell of drains!
Lord, take me once again to the washing wells.
Forgive me for the times I looked away,
While any evil one fouled the waters of peace.
I turned my face, shameless, I went my way
While the beggared lay chained, crying for release.
Lord forgive me, for I am adrift in fog.
I know not where I go, I am but a boat
Lost at sea, I am but a vomit-eating dog.
Here I am, make a sheep of this wayward goat.
meet the poet: Kukogho Iruesiri Samson
