The Day Cocks Refused To Crow 

Poem by Gbọ́láhàn Adébíyì

The day cocks refused to crow

Down in the valley of an island snow.

Darkness billowing like the breeze

In my aloneness, around a little candle for a tea

Reminiscing sweet perfs of strangers on broadways

The little candle, a hope for the coming light

Will not last the night for another Star

Nor the day in another night

Feelings unexpressed

Love unconfessed

Memories of previous day

Wishing to relive them once again.

The life I’d lived, the lies I’d told

Screaming at me, in my darkened soul.

The night wash me with a waterfall of its essence

Evoking thrills of yang experience

A new feel, a new will

A new me, a new ding

As the night refused to retire

And the cocks renounce their duty of crier

Shovel in hand, digging my six feet pit.

At the horizon

Glimmer of a peeping yellow sun

As the breeze echoes the new dawn lullaby

And the cocks begin to cry.