The Chase Is Vain. Poem by Thabani Khumalo

Doom is fame and the chase is vain.
Fame is the legal failure to tell the truth.
It is only that and nothing more.

My life does not come into play because of yours.
You do not know what I can do to your spirit because you don't know who I am.

You should have left me alone to my devices,
but because you are too drawn to temptation,
you couldn't attempt a sneaky chance at wisdom.

I can make you owe me as much as you have kept returning to promise.
You think I haven't been counting how many times
you've been coming to me in this manner of ill behavior -
trying to steel from my stack?

Now you need to pay me as much as you promise and you will make it happen.
Otherwise you will begin to fear your sleep
because the eyelids show you painful dreams.

I have measured the duration of your mind.
You have disposed your soul in my hands,
I can cause it to come in contact with an angry Killer Snake,
from right were you are as I have continued to watch you in silence and tolerance.

You do not know how cold it is
when one goes down under by the venom.
I can choose a hundred generations of your descendants to not receive their own spirits.
I will haunt you so crafty, nobody is going to remember your name.

Trust me, this is a redheaded blazing threat.
I will seize you by a mysterious creature
and all living memories will desist from reaching yours.
I will get you at a full ensemble and make you shout in vein up to your doom.
So pay up and receive the gift of a true way to survive
or you try me and prove to meet what dangers I've taken from cruel Ghosts.
I have no soldier and I have no wizard,
I am Thabani Khumalo.