Night Encounter
Coming up the stairs
Through the light drizzle
One dark night, I met him
One with the darkness
I stopped for a moment,
Frightened, tense.
He laughed gently and I relaxed
Happy to find
In spite of the gun
He was still a man
It lit the dark
that gentle laugh
In the pitch of night...
But it was only the low laugh
Of one who was soon to die.
By Ken Saro-Wiwa
From Songs in a Time of War
from the ANA website
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4 comments:
Who was soon to die, the man holding the gun or the speaker. And who laughs (low or high) when they're about to die?
Boooooring! :-)
argghh... Fred, you're such a boor...
It's the ambiguity that makes this so beautiful and so chilling.
Now, this is beautiful and chilling:
As I was walking down the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away!
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