GHOSTS OF GAO
​by Remi Graves
 
First incision -
Blade separates flesh like Partition.
Blood trickles first then bursts into flood.
He's paying for an act deemed sinful by God, they say.
Sharia law, they say.
Knife cuts through bone, back and forth, back and forth.
Knife cuts through bone, back and forth, back and forth.
 
Perceived by mobile phones and pairs of eyes,
But there can be no songs sung to lament this crime.
The whole world turns a blind eye to this abuse of human rights.
And as I watch it years later on the big screen, a fragment of time:
Knife still cuts through bone, back and forth, back and forth.
Knife still cuts through bone, back and forth, back and forth.
 
He writhes in his seat now, arms and feet flail without grace
A twisted mimicry of the dance now outlawed.
A people deafened by the echoing silence
Of empty music halls and ransacked studios
Knife cuts through bone, back and forth back and forth.
Knife cuts through bone, back and forth back and...
 
Lump of now useless flesh, held in the hand of the grand juror
Disinfectant poured on stump, an odd concern belies this horror
"Three for me, and one for you" - "come, who's next in the queue?"
And this is how Gao now exists, haunted by ghost limbs.
And Amputees with severed minds, hands, legs, feet amiss
Mali too is being hacked, North and South bleed, she's haemorrhaging
Yet her Songhoy and Fula songs still beat on
back and forth back and forth
back and forth
back
and
forth.