The City Asleep Poem by Anitah Muwanguzi

The sun is astir,

The waves awake,

The rush of ocean defeaning,

Birds’ plotting heads bound together;

The ants, they are stocking up for the drought.

The shadows’ tails grow longer by the second,

The clouds are rolling in fast, their arsenal tucked in tight.

Ligtning and thunder mar the dark expanse,

But the city remains asleep, shrouded in blissful ignorance.

The dark spirits shed their skin,

leaving dark illusions and nightmares in their wake

the keeper of night keeps a watchful hold,

the shadows grab hold of the mind of the sleeper, planting seeds of vengeance

Watering empty longings, making scarlet beds

the furnace is heating, greedy to be sated

but the city remains asleep, alive, but dead

the sun makes her descent, her back turned on her unmarked ascent.