Love Poem: The Romeo Gunner
Alayande Stephen Avatar
Written by: Alayande Stephen

The Romeo Gunner

They won’t stop
I mean my friends
May be, we won’t stop
Think that is better

But for my Gunner friend
Charming light-complexioned
Fine boy, we all know
A smooth talking orator 
An Engineer with a rare wisdom
With a posh car to cruise
Heaven was let loose on them his preys
A Gunner indeed,
Lost count of his prey cousins.

Cock barely crows
Before he landed on this day
Defying the heavy down pour
To come to a friend slaughter-alter
Smiling radiantly . . . un-endlessly
Suddenly became nice unusually
Why? Oh! He came for his prey cousin
She it who is at a friend’s wedlock.

His prey cousin whose name I know not
For her, he salivate  . . . savor to Romeo
But he already has a Juliet
The one he ringed five moons ago
A dark-complexioned Queen
He ignited with a protruding belly.

Oh! On this day for the prey
He looked sportingly smart
In a Jean, T-shirt and a fez cap
He waited endlessly for his cousin.

Feigning to be calm
But obviously not cool
Despite heavy clatter of water above
For he desires desperately
To run gun shot on his cousin
What kind of cousin is this?

He paces round the Abattoir room
As her voice echoes in his ear
“I’m sorry, I’m coming
Please, wait for me love
I’m still in the wedding”.

Perturbed, yet pretends not disturbed
For there was no sight of her
He hissed countlessly

It was five hours past noon
Before I yawned twice
Time ran off me like a wild fire
Darkness took over the firmament
It dawned on the Gunner
No cousin prey to gun down today
A brighter day for the potbelly Juliet
It was a bad day for the Romeo Gunner.