Reincarnated ‘Mussolini’ spread our eyes with dust,
And settles on our throat with chokes.
He wafts in adulation of secret concocted path,
Where eyes watch in contempt.
Unsound scholars are HIV patients,
While the two last cohorts crawl like infants.
‘Blackshirts’ chant his name,
Building in him the tower of Babel.
He dances to the mirage of praises,
And empties the blood of a critic.
He is like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,
Whose adamant dream is laid at the Capitol.
“II Duce” tangles the tail of a lion-poet,
Hungry and roaring in rage.
I am the poet of “a thousand naked voices,”
Silenced by the pistol of a Gorgon.
“I can drop my pen and go up…”
Power isn’t etched in his DNA,
Pride isn’t written by the veins on his forehead,
The irony of his becoming.
The battle of bards are with poems,
But Mussolini battles with ‘punitive’ power.
Reincarnated Ben needs a rebirth:
From
The mouth of authoritarianism
To
The fingers of democracy.
God!!!!
Only if he could hear.
Leonard Ifeanyi Ugwu, Jr, is a fellow of the Ebedi International Writers’ Residency, is a lecturer, researcher, poet, and playwright. His poems have appeared in a variety of prestigious journals, anthologies, magazines, e-zines, and websites around the globe, including Spillwords Press, Brittle Paper, Oddball Magazine, Atunis Poetry, ANA Review, The Muse Journal, among others. His poetry collections include ‘Echoes of the Invisible’ (AuthorHouse, USA, 2017) and ‘Echoes of Bullets’ (Emotion Press, Nigeria, 2021), which was nominated for the 2024 Akachi Ezeigbo Prize for Literature. His literary prowess earned him the Best Poet of the Year awards in 2012 and 2013, respectively, from the Caritas University Literary and Arts Association. Leonard holds a PhD in International Relations and a postgraduate diploma in English and Literary Studies. His poems chronicle his personal encounters in life. Leonard sees poetry as an archival diary of immortality.
