Lee Imuede

Our Place

Our place is a malady. 

With actors and potentates in its midlands

Out of whose mouths go guileful pledges. 

So it is when they seek a seat. 

Their levity luring our entreaty, 

And by this wont is our prize inhumed 

 

Our place is a sphere of arrogations.

An arena for self-important brigands. 

The very sobriquets for rot.

Ablating, enervating, etiolating, 

The nurtured greenness of the place;  

The unstinting labor of heroes past

 

Our place is a sanctuary of apostates

With glib lips of logorrheic volubility. 

A reliquary of bromidic sermons; 

Everywhen wanglers and workers of wonders

From whose gri-gris, with surplus abreast, 

Camels through needles\' eyes must go

 

Our place is the art of venality.   

Reigning and raining by leaps and bounds 

With plenary powers and contumelies        

Weltering, dominant, even on law\'s cot. 

Beginning and weaving deliberations through 

And resident ever, like a stay-at-home lioness 

 

Our own place feels all the inflicting 

Excruciating, it bleeds, it weeps; it reacts.  

Shall not the ills wreaked and sired today

Seep into the making of tomorrow? 

Now then, is time to begin the cathartic tread

To indeed serve our fatherland! 

To indeed serve our fatherland!