Procession I - Hanging Day Poem by Wole Soyinka

Procession I - Hanging Day



Hanging day.
A hollow earth
Echoes footsteps of the grave procession.
Walls in sunspots
Lean to shadow of the shortening morn.

Behind an eyepatch lushly blue.
The wall of prayer has taken refuge
In a piece of blindness, closed.
Its grey recessive deeps.
Fretful limbs.

And glances that would sometimes
Conjure up a drawbridge
Raised but never lowered between
Their gathering and my sway

Withdraw, as all the living world
Belie their absence in a feel of eyes
Barred and secret in the empty home.
Of shuttered windows, i know the heart.
Has journeyed far from present.

Tread. Drop. Dread Drop. Dead.

What may I tell you? What reveal?
I who before them peered unseen
Who stood one-legged on the untrodden
Verge- lest I should not return.

That I received them? That I wheeled above and flew beneath them.
And brought him on his way.
And came to mine, even to the edge
Of the unspeakable encirclement?
What may I tell you of the five
Bell-ringers on the ropes to chimes.
Of silence?
What tell you of rigours of the law?
From watchtowers on stunned walls.
Raised to stay a siege of darkness
What whisper to their football thunders.
Vanishing to shrouds of sunlight?

Let not man speak of justice, guilt
Far away, blood-stained in their
Tens of thousands, hands that damned.
These wretches to the pit triumph
But here, alone the solitary deed.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Bard 09 January 2021

Great write up.

0 0 Reply
Michael 18 October 2020

A good one from my mentor. Kudos boss, I’ve been a product of your grace

0 0 Reply
Babatunde Aremu 05 May 2014

I have always read this poem from my High School days. This is still relevant up till date. Great write!

1 0 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Close
Error Success