Truth, trough, through.
Health, stealth, felled

Truth brought joy the moment you spoke it
Troughs are where they went to stoke it
Through it they drove fire after spokes hit.

Health was what she had before she spoke it
Stealth was how New Bell made the stroke hit
Felled is the word to describe where hope is

Hope, a strange word,
It carries an upswing like a plane taking off,
Or like an uppercut swinging into your voice box

Either way, nobody raises a finger when truth
Is felled into a trough with thorough stealth
And the health of a nation cannot pull through

Every one stands and watches the vampire eat up
Their neighbour. Turns don’t go round, they stop
Just before the protagonist gets saved by his pop.

The lawyers got it, the teachers got it, the students
Got hit. The gutters are a comfy place to be lonely,
With sewage or not, all were potent (but sordid) portents

The chalkboard got covered with the same lesson like Bart,
“I will not speak against the old man with the darts”
“I will not speak truth, lies about him or his art.”

Silence is a crime. Violence is a crime. Living is like grime
Where slime fills your thoughts, and you can’t expectorate,
Because they expect you to with cocked rifle and unjammed nine

Just before the protagonist gets saved by his pop,
The vampire eats up the pop, and we realise this won’t stop;
Freedom’s Caesar at Pompei’s feet, gasping, gaped, you move to act but,

Breathe, heave, leave
Sigh, cry, die.

(c) nyonglema