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Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Ice that Was the Down in the Dirt Jan.-April 2022 issues collection book		get the 420 page Jan.-April 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

This time, We Don’t Know a Good Man

Haqim Abolaji

He had once lived with us, the man,
Whose eyes could see farther than
The gods, and fingers that can draw
A thin line between life and underworld.
This time, you don’t know a good man.
But we know, maybe- we are too blind to see.

He would sit on his porous lawn; eat
His nails, and scrubs his back with a
Wooden stick, that gingered his walking
Swagger. We called him a mad man;
A knave, and other names that could
Describe a strange-looking-man.

He’d displayed strangely, cocky traits-
With countless vulgarisms. he would tell
The kids who dashed their skin with
Western uniform- passing through the
Shaft of his house- down to their various
Lessons, to go back to their father’s house;
And pick up their machete, and hoes, and

Go back to harvest the rays of their livestock.
“There won’t be a place for you on the map,
Your fathers will be forgotten, so will you, your
Mothers and your children.” The mad-
Man would say, with his eyes taunting
The audacious views of the day. We never
Take him serious, nor his words.

He’s just a mad-man, whose fingers
Are longer than that of a Shaman,
He’s a garbage- that congested our
Galleries with dirt. Our doctrine, our
Blindness; our dances to the beat of
Western drums, our queues and rallies
To the whim of vultures, he called it a
Blindness. A political blindness; an
Economic daftness, a social woe, a
Religious sickness, and, you know all other
Nesses that could infringe independent.

As days gone by, the dog realizes the
Significance of its hunter’s whistle. Age
Washed-away his black hair, his fingers
Became farther than normal. His
Body, peeled, and his hut’s-thatched-poles
Crumbled, dismantling his wooden shed,
As rain watered-away his rags.

Today, we remembered him, and we
Couldn’t call him a mad man.

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