“Sudanese warlord sonnet: defeat challenger to putting resurrect.”

My lilting head, his head a molded bronze,
Pelt decked with wilting lilies of the plain,
And in his fist a spear, on which life yawns
And tumbles to teeth’s sharps to split in ‘twain.

Defeat this challenger, to put in place
A putting resurrect, that spits and starts
And plods gravedestined t’wards my sparkling face
That everwarlord speaks of life as art.

And I’m a sickly thing; know it by my quick
Splint’rings of his sculpted form, by their stresses
: Same with scalpel as with warlord’s deathstick
On his fat mouth — spear-of-mouth, rotting bronzeness.

And yes the time of giants comes to end,
I’ll meet the blonde-fresh lilies as a friend. 

“Sudanese warlord sonnet: first real battle.”

The sweat! My skin! My blood! My ashen hair!
The battlefield, us digging in the dirt.
I shall dissolve my weakened flesh, impair
That great black thing — my death, my wrath, my hurt.

Metalclad and bullettorn! Lilieyed
I spit, I raise my razored banner and
Lead my slick lion knights with warlord’s pride.
My muzzle’s warm! My mind in cruor’d sand!

In my expel myself I do forget,
And oh my armor swelts into my pores.
A fine-toothed whale in which I resurrect
A second Jonah, cat of briny shores.

My blood is battle! I, a metal man!
As sweat bonds seams, I’ll glut on bepeaced land. 

“Sudanese warlord sonnet: horses.”

I met my death unwell, but peacefully.
I took black Death upon my back, its horse.
Clomped jackhoofed ‘cross lands that I once sullied
As nostrils blared: no peace, and no remorse.

And equines two-by-two took to my side,
And there was no peace: in stead love’s dull twinge.
As warlords did in warlord time, abide
My turn to senseless hush, to warland’s fringe.

I spit a fleeting hawk: the greengrass groans;
The many warlords of the plain fell droves;
Ants dig for gold, they pay back fleeting loans;
The horse — a man in tattered, tattered clothes.

Hooves scraping, glinting, dull to azure blue.
The lilies, quiet mirrors, bluing too.