My father!
(abbreviated version of what to follow next)
He came a millennium years after
Aksum’s heritages were irreparably shattered.
He saw no hope to recover
So he resorted to a new culture
He hadn’t practised before.
My father was fun to be with
To a gloomy life shackled beneath
He tainted blossoms of roses.
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.
Such was he, unperturbed Zealot
Once he secured a ticket in his pocket;
As we perambulated
In 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 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 and waste.
But it triggered a deeply buried saudade,
Of a state paid brigand
Who wantonly my father massacred.
Years later, 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And became withdrawn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.
What was I expecting,
This world to offer
Other than Misery and despair!
Belay Ambelay