A lottery ticket and a portrait!
(The long somber version)
He came on a millennium passed
After Aksum was repeatedly disfigured and defaced,
Until no-one could hardly trace
It’s glory and grace.
The mystery till these days
No-one could figure out
How the Aksumites crafted,
And Carried out the draft,
Of a football field size rock blast
With prehistoric tools and shaft.
Yes, He came on a millennium later
After the Aksum’s heritages ladder
Were busted
and Pulverised to dust,
By no other than marauding pagans,
Of bygone era, pre-followers of Dagan,
Stravaging on a wideopen fertile span
The pagans set foot to hunt.
Not only its fauna but also the land;
Envious of progress deployed to plan
They had no clue to replicate
But only the zest to decimate.
An act of distraction
A panacea for psychic detraction
To draw a sense of gratication.
A vision – strabismus
Land grabbing by scad of nomads
Hoping to dominate
The face of the planet.
So no other people,
Minding their own business-
Moving forwards in progress –
Could have a chance to enhance
except those tending herds-
In open spaces,
To prance in trance,
And repeatedly propel and impel
Victims with lances,
Be they wielder-beasts or humans.
Shandefrued was their psychic rudder
Hunting down marvels others endeavoured.
There was no stone left unturned
No sepulchre unplugged,
No grave un-dug,
Impelled and laced with drugs
Aksumites were dragged
And buried alive, like Egyptians at the pyramids’ sprag,
suffocating in hide bags.
A Cruel only skill, the herdsmen knew, bear-hugged,
And Coyly bragged off with a smug,
With a tail wag,
As an achievement flag!
The Amhara elites have no a taproot
To stand ground and persist
But tentacles of stolons for a foot
That lurches on any soil type plots
And adapt to wherever is set en route.
Look no where,
But the impromptu names of towns in Wello and Begemider:
As opposed
Tuesday:/ማክስኝት፣ Thursday/ሃሙሲት፣ Friday/ኣርቢት፣ Wednesday/ሮቢት፣ Monday/ስኞት.
A true chronicle of a troubadour
From place to place as he moves over
Recounting the days he had to remember.
In contrast to the Tigrian now epitaphs of Rama/ራማ፣ Mendefera/መንደፈራ
They have no own language or culture:
I bet-my-own-boots,
All they do good,make no moot,
Only someone’s back garden pollute.
So with the Ancoborites rule put firm in place
Religion is by Diablerie and sorcery replaced,
So poverty girdle round his waist braced,
My father was hunted and chased.
Once he had seen it all and had lost hope
To help things change for a better,
He began taking dope
And turned an addict
To a gambling habit
As a way of, call it a trick,
To keep his hopes tick
That he might break through a thick
poverty’s brick.
My father was fun to be with
Despite reticulated ramrose of morose faced,
He tainted life with blossoms of roses.
So he began to buy lottery tickets
In the hope of escaping realty bleak.
Though hoping to win a jackpot,
A chance he had got,
Was like capturing a rain spot
In a vast desert plot.
Such was he, unperturbed zealot,
Once he secured a ticket in his pocket
As we perambulated
In the the backwoods
To sanitise, off loading body wastes
He would go on end in deliriums
He would had me built a house imperium.
How life would change
From the shackles it had us chained;
And woke up from the doldrums
If we won the jackpot whole sum
Then the drawing day came and gone
My father would turn quiet and fore lone.
Weeks past, another ticket would be bought
And the story of me having my house built
Would consume our evening chats
Through the woods and as we squatted,
off-loading body wastes.
The story went on end
But the fortune was never made;
Nor our life’s destiny appended.
One day my father was caught off guard
And at Point blank executed
by fleeing army in a rout.
Upon committing the murder
The brigand in a uniform, state-order-
Search my father’s jacket
and grabbed his wallet from his pocket,
Which had a lottery ticket in wait,
Including my portrait.
Make no doubt,
He would have had to burn the portrait
It would have had hunted him if he did not.
But I had hoped the other thing he kept
Would not be a winning ticket.
Then I left home to study in foreign land,
I had no feeing I belonged
There in the city of aristocrats
When I came across urchins selling tickets
I turned my back abrupt
Never bothered to look at
Let alone to buy as a waste.
But it triggered a deeply buried saudade,
A state paid brigand
Who wantonly my father massacred.
Years later, me being cornered;
A tourbillion twist, mind-rafter,
I had not thought to occur.
When I turned the age of my father,
And had my own kids to look after,
Whom I had little to offer,
Like son, like father!
I turned an addict,
And began to buy lottery tickets
Hoping I would kelter
And leave them With a roof to shelter
But every time a draw came up and gone,
I felt abandoned
And became withdrawn
With my emotions going down.
History is in repeat
Another army depredator is running in rout
Would I be a martyr left
Lying in the gutter,
For jackals to devour –
Would he search the jacket;
Grab the wallet from the pocket;
What would happen to the kids portraits
And the lottery ticket?
What was I expecting,
This world to offer
Other than misery and despair!
Belay Ambelay