THE CARNIVAL OF MUSHROOMS

Where is the happiness that I asked for?
Where is the glee I so deserve?
Where is the mirth I worked for?
Or the laughter my soul yearns?
Are they burnt out lately
Or slowly dancing after the old lady?
Would this transition ever end?

I asked for freedom, but you gave me birth.
I asked to grow up to become my own man
To choose from unrighteousness and
righteousness,
But you gave me challenges.
I fought with a lion and I thought
I had won the battle
But you told me to skin another leopard
And cover the hide on a drum
And I knew you would ask me to beat the
drum too.

I strike the drum men sprouted from the
ground like mushrooms
They danced barefooted
With recognized broken lines across their
faces
Upon a floor tiled with glass chips and
thorns.
Blood oozed from their naked soles
Until the storm came and wipe them away.
Death only means birth, another generation
came
And we continued the carnival
From dispensation to dispensation.

I looked into their sunken eyes
I read so many chapters,
I saw a generation drenched in hate
A people robbed of peace
Fluttering like daffs in the winds.
Men hug the air
Women stand in akimbo
Children carry their own hands on their heads.
Ready for the next phase, ready to live a death.

The hurricane of life stumbles on
It started from the garden
But tends to end nowhere,
No day soon, no day coming;
All men frown laughter content with the
inevitable
It is the carnival of mushrooms!