Darkness a Bird of Prey - Dambudzo Marechera
What are the things, bright-winged.
That within me no longer move
No longer 'bruptly leap clear to soar
Towards the stars above this dead weight night?

Where is that ecstatic turmoil
Which fired once my youth to desperate acts
Visions beyond any known to the hideous devil?
Where! that demented force that hurls Death
"Get thee behind me"?

The hundred knocks on the door
To my thirties old life
And th'impatient question "Is anyone there?" - I have
No strength to shudder, to utter, to
Scream YES or painfully mutter "Go away".

(Cemetary of Mind, 1992)