MÉLANGE

MÉLANGE

Once upon a different time.

When lanterns and fireflies gave light to our paths.

When gongs and talking drums opened the evening news.

When the meal at the close of the day came alongside a present-

Grandma’s walk-to-the-stream story.

Now another age is born.

One which has silenced the screams of the gongs

And buried the lanterns under our beds.

One that no longer run towards home at night.

This is the age I was born. 

And when the words from grandma no longer make a difference,

And the ink left by our fathers ran out. 

We succumb to the mercy of the white man’s lens.

We woke different. We woke changed.

We became strange.

The Fourth

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fortune Elvis[The Fourth] is an African teenage boy residing in Lagos, Nigeria. He finished his secondary education in The Valiant Foundation School, Sango Otta, Ogun state. He’s a Poet, Copywriter and a Singer.