AFRICAN WRAITH

The African Wraith

Just let me lie down and peacefully die
So you won’t have to listen to my pitiful cry;
I’m numbed to a shadow with hunger pangs
For the African Wraith has me in its fangs.

African wraith vultures hover o-er the desert
As a skeletal shadow, a fleshless spirit;
It consumes the dying to build up its power,
A consumptive plague, all life to devour.

The shadow grows as the Sahara blows on south,
With less food in bellies, dry retching mouths;
All across the Sahel fly the shadow wings
It’s eyes are staring sockets, death is all it brings.

The Wraith'll fly like a nazgul till the world is laid waste,
Haunting all survivors with the barren after-taste;
It works the spirit of the desert into the heart of men,
Till it has them fighting in self-destruction again.

The African Wraith flickers out from your TV screen,
You see its victims in torment, you hear them scream;
You hear news of his slaughter on the radio waves
His deathly shrieks cry out from the printed page.

But only some people see it, only some souls hear!
The vast plague is raging but so few volunteer;
The African Wraith takes human hearts into drought,
And he’ll only let go if souls let their sin be crossed out.


1985 © Wayne David Knoll

First published 1986 in the Global book Anthology “POETS FOR AFRICA” - An International Anthology For Hunger Relief - by World Harvest (The Family Of God) 1986 Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America

[ I was very pleased, maybe a little sycophantically stupid, to find my poem included in this anthology five poems after the lyric of 'Blowin in The Wind' by Bob Dylan ]