Life is Death
Peter Bakyit Cuktu · 1982
What a grace and beauty
So sweet but deceptive
Lucifer’s crafts and Lotus-eater
Bends people to sweetness
Offering all delicious
Earthly folks feast on
Their souls looted soon
Captivating, laxing Lotus
Luring subjects and rulers.
There is hardly any epidemic
Contagious choleric, leprous
Catching the poor and the rich
Luring life passes all.
She is present everywhere
What a selling hot cake
Supplying generously and willingly
Purchasing cheaply on credit
Repaying hurriedly by death
Claiming all her very debts
Customers sitting in dejection
Chins tightly held in palms
Eyes casting down in agony
Lips compressing hard for pain
Muttering, shrieking, groaning utter
When peppering death arrives.
What’s a heathen goddess
Without truth and compassion
Mother-devoting-instincts
Of lower-higher – animals
Common mother of all sins.
The living love life
The living love life
Her love “deathening” trap
Her bullets shooting fast
Her lovers falling victims
Her messenger killing death
As poisonous arrows in victims
The weapon turning blood cold.
All shining is no gold
A bottomless pit is she
A famous hollow sham –
Externally angel, Heaven
Internally grave, Hell.
Of greatest trap in nature
The worst bait is life
Enveloping many in Kingdom
Medicine working in all
Life meaning different things
Yet meaning something
Toward every person
All enjoying something
Fish catching everyday
Hook, sinker, lining.
Life’s present everywhere
Life tastes sweetly
But life acts deadly
The cancer ruins nations
The nuclear kills races
Bacterial strains everywhere
Life is killing everyday
Scientists know no antidote.
EDITOR’S NOTE
First published in Nigeria Magazine, Friday, January 1, 1982.
Source: Archiving.