KURTZ’S LAST SUPPER

Evangelists believe in conditional immortality.
Cross-dressed clansmen think Christians taste best dead.

Human flesh fires the belly before battle.

Skies glow violet then pitch. Pyres of tyres smoke, plains burn,
But nothing flickers in the dense clouds.
Night descends. Existence in the dark is extreme.

A trip to the uttermost ends is a journey to the centre of the void.
Blackout is total; the security of the inner sanctum violated;
Buffers breached, the train has long left the Congo…

For the rest, there is no going back.
Cut and paste from instants of great moment.
Momentum gathers. Next stop: Monrovia.

Travel disquiets and discovers.
The Company has gone away and not gone away:
Abused become abusers; sons of genocide go genocidal.

The lizard-brained ruin the roost. There are no leaders,
Only bosses armed to the teeth with mosquito spray.
The sub-lethal toxicity of insecticides
Offers a welcome distraction to decay.

Skies burn black with the barbecue of human carnage.
Carnival time. Lost to gravity and morality,
World-weary child warriors, spaced out on reality,
Wait impatiently...

For each bloodied chunk
Ripped from the heart of darkness
By hollowed men.

The horror! The horror!

The United Nations office shuts early on a Thursday.