Of A Lunatic Poem by Oduro Bright Amoh

Left to right and left to right again, he turns.
Something should be found,
Something beats his brain.
He prods his mind again and again.
This loss is weird.
Amid the cold of night, the gentle breezes sing.
The leaves dance to the windy tune in near silence.
The silver clouds lose their beauty.
Down, left, down, right and again, his eyes flash,
His trembling hands voice out his silent fret.
Where is it? Why? It is somewhere.
Drivers are asleep, their vehicles too.
Nocturnal eyes peep through the dark with apparent interest.
The light of their eyes is the only radiance about.
A sweat pours from his worried face,
A frown lazily turns up on his pallid cheeks.
Left, down, right, again and again
His eyes flash and his neck turns.
The street is lonely, save the resting cars.
The diurnal occupants are indoors
Robbing sleep or being robbed of it.
A quick thing passes and a quick thing pursues.
No time to think what it was,
Perhaps a mouse running for life
And a cat running after food.
Or a dog after dog for the jollity of it.
But what is that to him?
His lips quiver,
His jaws seem to have caused a skirmish with each other.
The battalion of teeth are clashing with one another.
Lips salivate and drool, they land on his tattered shirt.
The sky is dark, the stars slept early,
The moon— where it is who can tell.
The cloud is dark and getting darker,
A howl from far is heard, but no dog is seen.
Another howl responds, and then another.
Then a chorus of barks.
Still, no visual sign of a canine is to be noticed
He watches left and right,
His trembling lips mutters something his ears do not hear.
His hands like divers swiftly drown into his torn side pockets,
And like the show of dolphins fly out as soon as they enter.
The breezes lose their mildness
The wind becomes savage
Leaves fall whose strengths cannot hold
The night is colder now,
His face, clothed with earth falls
His eyes ripen into blood
His stomach churns
He sheds a single tear.
The heavens shed a tear.
And soon it's a pelting storm.
Taking shelter are the creatures.
Silence is silenced
Thunder and rain play side by side like a symphony
Lightning strikes
Wait, is that not what he searches for?
He sees it, or is it his poor mind pulling tantrums?
His eyes are wet, and so is his whole body.
Brown water drips from every part of him unto the floor
Left, right, and down again, and again
His vision now blurred with water, sweat and tears, tiredly travels.
He scratches his head,
The battle between his jaws has grown fierce.
He still throws his closing eyes about.
His legs now tremble, his entire structure's feeble
Still, his eyes whose determination
Has not been washed away by the rain,
Looks left and down, and again
This time with less swiftness than the previous.
Hours have passed, The heavens refuse to be consoled.
A bark is heard, but quickly fades as thunder blasts.
Lightning strikes
Again he thinks he sees it.
Mirage, or is it?
His eyes pace about.
The gutters are full, the road has become a stream
The stream becomes a sweeper
The sweeper of every weightless thing.
His strength gives out
His legs no longer can.
He lies supine, debilitated
Lightning strikes!
Well, .............
The sun pulls a morning smile
The chirping songsters are heard
We have woken up from a good sleep
Casting off our Good Mornings from neighbour to neighbour
It's a bright, sunny morning,
Thither, there lies a man who died with the rain;
And there it is, what he searches for lies with him.