Dafour

I

Chocolate flavoured tears
Of the mute women of Dafour
Taste forever bitter

II

I dream of large canvases with
warm chocolate coloured women
draped defiantly in bright
flowing fabric - purple, pink, orange -
arranged against a stark golden desert.
Alert, unbending bodies
with mute closed mouths
and dry - bright - white eyes
that say nothing
of burning children
and headless husbands,
of marauding horsemen
and violent rapes,
of unlivable lives
and undying deaths.
I stare transfixed till
the colour spills on the floor
and I must rush
to gather it in my palms
before it smears the earth;
but I wake too late in a silent sweat,
day after day, screaming soundlessly
while the world sings a song, on a large stage,
about the visions of Dafour.

(c) Anita V. July 2005

Defeat

How effortlessly you topple me
from the smug crest of my
carefully gathered equilibrium,
carved patiently over endless time.
A swish of verbal weapons
rush past, the backlash creating
a rustle in the air around my calm,
and my tranquility crumbles
in a heap of agitated fragments
to be put together once again
bit by tiring bit.

You have won the war.

(c)Anita V. July 2005