SIERRA LEONE (1999)

Freetown rises in concrete blocks of houses
grasped on rocky tips
cell walls hide facets of diamonds
and white powder traffic
nourishing power bellies
and mercenary hearts

he strives amid sounds and signs
of fading humanity
the laughter of children
rats' feet scuttling off broken stones
songs that spiral prayers from the Mission
his scalpels trying to cut the blanket of resignation
from faces dry and closed as the enigma of life
or death

down the slope the air is whipped
by the heat waves coiling
from corrugated tin on
mud huts staring through
short lashes of grass
discolored by scorching thirst
that tells of diseases plaguing
the pus patched soil
agonizing in gravel wounds

he knows of peace mediators
who develop photos of boundaries
debate treaties to add to history
in cool rooms

sweat drops down his face taste of tears

in the stillness stuck to a melted gold sky
thousands of armed zombies move
over a hopeless land
he sees them climb up in their lack of shadows
he hears them mutter thicken
the citadel bursts
with bombs booms blasts

walls crack crumble fall
ratata ratata ratatataratatatatatata ta
shooting and shouting scatter
flocks of black and creole children
lifted in the air
by volleys of machine-guns

clumsy flights with no wings crash
ratatatatatata ratatatatata
…..ratatataratatataratatataratatataratatata ta
onto the slimy ground where
sweat flows with blood fear and death in
eyeballs bulging in
pupils dilated by misty stupor while
rigid fingers grasp small nomoli *
wrapped in holy pictures

he crawls amid corpses dust rocks bones despair
his heart burns with whys neither God answered

*(small human figures created by Ngewo, the natives' God)

© Paula Grenside

-Sierra Leone- was inspired by the recounting of a priest who escaped the massacre in Freetown. I was mesmerized and horrified at the same time. While listening to him, images kept flashing on my mind and I had to start the poem immediately. It was revised several times till I felt it was not only a reportage but horror in verse. It was read aloud during a Charity Theatre Performance to collect funds for Sierra Leone Mission. The " survivor" (he still can't realize how and why he is alive) was moved and asked me how I was able to depict places and people I have never seen. But I was there with him; I just translated his simple, desperate recounting into images.

Most of my poems, different in topics and form as they are, are developed on images. I have to see, touch, hear, taste, smell what I feel. I draw my images especially from nature, the greatest master and guide, and the challenge is to find a fresh way to make the reader look at something he or she knows and can discover anew. Words/images can be a musical painting, but they have to be combined to provoke an emotion, a sequence of emotions. This is what I strive to achieve. I tend to privilege the figurative as it offers the possibility of layered meaning and reading.