Madness Learns to Fly

By Teedzani Thapelo

In the bone-shard savannah,
Where shadows writhe like famished pythons,
Sun a cruel tyrant on a scorched and sutured sky,
A symphony of dust drums on corrugated ribs of earth,
and vultures write obituaries in thermals bleached of mercy.
Here, madness weaves spidery webs with windblown thorn and fear, its canvas the parched expanse where sanity surrenders,
Where mirages paint shimmering mirages of water’s phantom grace, and desiccated laughter rattles in the skulls of bleached-bone baobab.
The sky, a bruised and tattered awning, weeps in pestilential downpours,
Birthing monstrous swamps that slurp and smother with fecund greed,
Breeding grounds for fevers that whisper with mosquito song,
and where flesh succumbs to rot, a supplicant to nature’s cruel decree.
In this primordial crucible, where life boils down to primal thirst, humanity shrinks to whispers,
A flickering votive in the storm,
Its dignity flayed by thorn and tempest, its dreams flayed by sun,
A fragile raft on a river of mud, swept towards oblivion’s maw.
The earth, a canvas of cracked clay, erupts in thorny brushstrokes,
a labyrinth of desiccation where hope is lost in endless sand,
Where every breath is a battle fought on cracked and blistered tongue,
and sanity splinters to shards beneath the sun’s unblinking gaze.
Here, death is not a spectre, but a grinning skull upon the path,
A hyena’s chorus chanting hymns of entropy’s embrace,
Each sunrise a grim reminder of the dust that we shall be, each sunset a pyre where dreams are immolated without grace.
Yet, in this desolate tableau,
Where despair paints murals on the soul, a flicker of defiance,
A spark against the ravenous night,
The human spirit,
A feral bloom pushing through parched earth, a testament to the tenacity of life, a wild and indomitable light.
In the gaze of a sunbaked child, eyes reflecting sun-cracked sky,
A primal wisdom whispers, etched in lines by wind and sun,
A song of resilience sung in cracked and dusty throats,
A testament to the embers that glow even when hope is done.
For in this crucible of dust and fury,
Where madness holds its sway,
The human spirit lives, a dervish twirling in the storm,
A defiant ballet on the precipice of oblivion’s maw,
A testament to the beauty that blooms even in the face of mortal form.
So let the vultures write their morbid verse upon the windswept sky,
Let the sun sear flesh and bake the mind to sun-bleached clay,
Let the storms unleash their fury, the swamps their fetid breath,
For in the heart of this wild crucible, hope, a phoenix, finds its way.
It rises from the ashes of despair,
A song on cracked and blistered lips,
A testament to the indomitable spark, the flame that will not die,
A defiant bloom in the wasteland, a whisper on the desert’s sigh,
A lyric etched in bone and dust, a testament beneath the sun’s fierce eye.
For even in this brutal maelstrom, where life and death entwine,
The human spirit paints its own fierce verse, a testament to time,
A wild and vibrant hymn in the face of dust and endless sky, a love song to the savage beauty where even madness learns to fly.
So let the wild drums beat their rhythms on the sun-baked earth,
Let the shadows dance with vultures,
Let the storms their fury cry, for in this brutal cradle,
Where life and death conspire to birth,
The human spirit blooms,
A testament that even madness cannot deny.

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Teedzani Thapelo is a poet and novelist. He has been recognized by the Share Botswana Tourism Fiction Award (2017); Botswana Society for Human Development, Gaborone and was a Share Botswana Tourism Fiction Award (2019) winner. Thapelo is the author of Seasons of Thunder (2020), 2nd Edition, Ironmantle Books, Virginia, USA. His poem, “Okavango Delta’’ (2017), was published in the Botswana poetry collection 36 Kisses and Other Stories, Anthology of Botswana Writers, Nascali Publishers, Gaborone and his poem “Dry Heart’’ (2019), appeared in in Blue Train, Anthology of Botswana Writers, Nescali Publishers, Gaborone.