I pray thee, father, speak to the cursed clouds that bear thy son’s wish,
For this sick dome I know as home has stung lush lungs off my fish.
I try to leap into space, but strange songs sweep my eyes with sleep
And dreams drum distant dirges in shallow wells of waters deep.
This place I call home puffs cigarette fumes into my broken nose.
Mother! Please, plead my cause from yonder lands where thy old bones doze!
I beg the lurking rains to flood the doomed deserts of my flight,
But their tongues are drunk and they flee like the sun at night.
I look in the mirror and mute monkeys stare back at my pale face.
Can a frozen frog croak again to remain in the river’s race?
This place I call home spews flames to raze the rhythm of my soul
Amid the silent thunder of faceless ghosts as hot as burning coal.
How swift do I leap to reach the racing hands of the clock
Ever in sprinting cycles, crowing like a horny cock?
Take me to the buoyant fountains of a newfound beginning,
Lest this present turns an offspring of a past lost in meaning!
Let the bliss of morrow laughter warm my breath in bed,
For this place I call home is a fever in my head!
My eyes are dimly shut; visions are shattered in the stormy breeze.
I aim at a fleeing thief; brave bullets shiver and bleed and freeze.
I am a nursing mother, whose breasts are in want of milk,
A flowing lace robe that sprouts the foreign fibres of silk.
This place I call home has the yam and I, the knife.
Who then shall strike first; who dares to submit as wife?
Father! Pray, show me thy face, for I am trapped in my own web!
This place I call home is nothing but me –
That clumsy being that breathes inside of me!