Love Poem: Not This Rose
Emanuel Okwii Avatar
Written by: Emanuel Okwii

Not This Rose

I saw a dazzling rose,
Whose red petals cast blinding hues upon me.
She shot her cupid arrows from the Kabaka’s backyard,
And punctured the cocoon of my innocence.  

My heart burnt for a feel of her spangled petals,
My ferocious passions lost their sturdy grip on restraint as
I, like a pollen-famished bee, sniffed her whiff;
I gorged on her rosy scent, like a Don Quixote.

Then, I plucked her off the tribal bough;
And navigated the Nile River with her,
Tacked in the valves of my heart,
For a cross boarder allogamy.

What a welcome from my kinsfolk!
Furrows ridging the faces of my kinsmen,
Spittle of disgust masticating the hungry soils,
Grey beards wagging and waging a silent war;
 Alien!