Diatribe to the Dying Tribe

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1.   So you are incensed, miffed because

I told you that I am incensed, miffed

By the state of the world, dreams incinerated

Never to smoke, hope choked

Never to flame, ambitions wilted

Never to blossom

And what did you say?

That I am being judgmental, a cynic

A soothsayer, a prophet of doom

For in my shady lens, I see blurred

Sketches of man’s imperfections

Rather than the ‘bigger picture’

Of man’s triumphs

I told you man’s shine

Shouldn’t be dimmed by frail moonlight shadows

That litter man’s galaxy of success

For what is a meteor’s dazzle

If after a minute of spectacle it fizzles?

What is the essence of the sun

If not to bring morning to man’s night of doom?

And what did you say, friend?

That I talked ‘abstract’ and needed

Something ‘immediate’ and ‘real’

That I was being more philosophical than

The Platos and Socrates

And to be immediate

I told you that you are an intellectual

Midget, phobic of learning, a stranded

Soul in a crowd of probing minds,

Thus, in a defeatist spirit,

You cry ‘abstract’ yet all else fits

I didn’t mean to be rude, friend

If I projected myself as such, I request

For your apology, but still

How do you speak of liberation

If you have no clue of Maji Maji and Mau Mau?

If you should talk, peel off your tribal skin

Tell me about the ocean’s tides

How it rises in tandem with man’s kites

Speak with wisdom, entrance me

Tell me about the world in 2072

Not some cheap gossips about witchhunting

That is not new, capture my imagination

With a novel idea, an idea that will save

The planet, not them-and- us cocoon

And so, to incriminate me,

You contorted my noble thoughts

Twisted them to paint me as the bad guy

Assassinated my character

Berated me, besmirched me, bespattered me

But in your bones, you know

That your life has been a lie—

A counterfeit contraband

You also know that

My thoughts stain your conscience

Because I speak from nature

I don’t build gabions in deserts

I don’t breathe helium in theatres

And so, mistakenly,

For every quadruple of accusations

You heap on me, nature throws a dozen

Of alibis, like a dove I shrug them off

Because your case is shallow, accursed

To penury of yourself, self built on quicksand

Because my case is the case of man

Not so much about me—scratch that

I had to write this to you,

Because I realized, quite surprisingly

That all the energies you summoned

Against me could easily be tapped

Into some initiative—learning maybe?

Because if you think about it

I drink the potent brew of minds

All of them combined can’t be wrong

Even if you breathe hail and brimstone

I will clinically drizzle them bit by bit

I have put out infernos-what is fire

towering in a tea glass, friend?

C) Lorot Salem 2011