Frederick Kwesi Great Agboletey 

Bali in afterthought

I have gone through all the motions

Playing to inattentive gallery of emotional void

I feel no emotions just a blankness of emptiness

Nothing expected, nothing gained, just emptiness -

I have walked these tiresome streets

Strutting my peacock charade of made believe verve

Yet, grace is redemptive in its consolatory avoidance

Walking, these tiresome streets of nothingness -

Ecstatic ecstasy hazy joy receding with sunrise

Body cooking from within, frozen sweat, rivers dripping in blobs

Our made believe world of tourist paradise is a village a thousand miles from nowhere

Where is home? -

Just another beat

Hissing torch friezing flesh

Wailing mechanical rush of ambulances racing

Cold metal taste of stank flesh of friends frying -

Innocence, ignorance, lust, pretence, then nothing,

Midnight swim in navy blue ocean

Stars twinkling in distant places

Heaven above, time inconceivable, this vast emptiness -

Sun drenched beach, Venus rising, crystals drops of sea water dripping

Supple supplement of youthful abandon

Idle curiosity of eyes that have lost innocence

On a sun spangled beach in Bali -

A gift for careless eyes

A place far away to drain mechanised civilisations entrapments of dreary stress

Packed bags left in hidden corners, fizzling threaded dread

Mission impossible replaying, then swirling lights, emergency -

Thrashed silence in flashing strobe lights

Mindless abandon free from care

Suspicion’s robe slide off at last control of entry

Free flow, liquor, ease and no dis-ease -

Just a place, a beach, a palm shade

Away from heat of life for a place in distant sun

Exotic lands, stranger people, silent misconceptions

A smile a nod and a big bang -

Sun in my eyes,

Fire beneath my feet

Burning tarmac

Frenzied, frieze mind -

Awareness is innocence lost

Time and place irreverently distorted

Your religion, my suffering, our guilt

A shot in an alleyway, bombs in watering holes -

Images set against a black background

Streaks of light in a velvet skies, pitch black on film

Snatches of images displacing this bright horror, cackling

A side of pork and two eggs and everything comes gushing forth -

These meaningless insubstantial attachments of youth

Hormones affected mind hooked unto nature no letting go

Just barred soul in anguish

Escape is in far places, where golden sands are pure untainted and warm -

Our little discovery of ancient undefiled coves

A place of quiet in a noisy world

Our noise is mind numbing skulduggery of resonating meaningless bass

Our limbs in flight pumping adrenaline lined sweat -

Youth are snatches of abandon in a world regimented to full

Sun on our sullen faces, bleached skins toasted golden

Leisurely lounging in tropical havens

Till your jihad, meaningless ancient mumbo jumbo of raving wolves came to bear fruit -

A shadow crossing uncaring sun

In its timeless course

You little misguided souls seeking blood

See how it flows, your tears of unrepentant misery -

Flower, plucked, set gently, on flowing waters

Souls in transition, gently sent to that other void from this void

A silent face hands together, sari barely flapping, in gentle poise of regret

We lived, we died and no regrets -

Yet how empty it all seems

This clanging noise

Of futility a course of determined will

Importing destruction from far places -

See what you’ve done to our little paradise

Our place of escape, momentarily

You have turned Eden’s reflection into miserable memory

So, we drink to faces vague, hazy far from reality, yet bitter in truth -

Tens of thousands of escape from meaningless into void

Running yet never quite getting away

We spooked fires in vain ignorance

We played games of innocence and set ablaze our temples of pettiness -

In these things we did, mindlessly running around, jumping and singing

Then, a dive into crystal clear waves washing away our foiled maturity, our imperfections

For a moment touching purity of nature’s benign benevolence

We were children -

Here in these far places where we once felt at home

Eternity is a steady breeze blowing through palm fronds

Our tragedy, mere wisp in winds of time

Ashes swirling in hot afternoon gusts -