Dream As Reality

              Dream As Reality
              by George Amadi

I'm in my grand-mother's yam barn,
starry-eyed, wondering how she keeps
thieves at bay with a time-worn broom
hanging as an oddity from a sherry tree
one hundred years old, when out of
it fell a goat-thief, his intentions spitting.

Clutching the magic tool, to work, then,
went he, sweeping dead leaves out,
sweating out a storm, yet, returning to
start the energy-sapping chore afresh
until he dropped dead or so I thought.

A native doctor to the rescue came,
driving evil spirits out of the crook,
warning that time was running out,
and his perdition was one sin away.

Fifty years on, grand-mommy's village,
now crawling with criminals, toward
reversing the trend hasn't got a clue;
yet, all around, armed security agents
abound, not forgetting opulent courts.

When illusions, even if fragmentary,
allow hallucinations to trade places
with facts, making dreams seem like
reality, how hazardous mind's plight
as think-tank can, in no time, become.

Lagos, Oct. 16, 2012