Once In The Night Poem by Thabani Khumalo

Once in a dark night,
a man tried to spoil my physical joy;
once in a dark night,
he came about with a black gun in his cold blooded hand;
still in a dark night,
we had to ourselves a notorious pair of grievous trouble -
the trouble was he, much indeed, as the trouble was indeed I:
there was ordained no feasible way he could take with him my precious possessions,
so I chose to fight to deprave the thug his livelihood of menacing mayhem.

I could have beat him senseless with just a word
and rendered him into the benefits of spiritual maturity,
but, instead, I stood and worked a pair of my strong arms - way up to the shoulder.
I wanted him standing as I knocked my fists on his very ugly face;
I punched him sixteen times with both my hands tearing his pimpled flesh;
I struck with all the might aiming right on his big nose
and I saw tears brim heavily in his soulless eyes.
I took a little moment and watched him feel
as if the whole world rode on a quick-turning spin -
I was his only shiny saving grace and he worshiped my name in his fearful breath.

I kicked him in the mouth with an old police boot;
I kept on kicking his face until he had traveled backwards, a complete circle;
I grabbed him by his shabby filthy jacket
and shook his face down to crash against a rapid high knee -
and yet I dealt a lightning kick to his heartless chest.
He fell onto the ground on his muscle bound back -
without a sneaky jolt of any physical control -
reclined across the sprinkled turf.

I neglected the okapi in my pocket at the back
and reached out for his arm, a fully loaded gun;
I pointed the barrel of the gun onto his profusely bled face
before I stomped on his throat and pressed down with all my body weight
until I couldn't sense anymore of his evil living breath:
Once in the middle of the night,
I killed a man and hid him in the denser bush.