The Big Burly King
Ishmay Jewana | Bemin Secondary College |
English | Term 1 2025
The big burly king
sits on a gold encrusted seat
Behind his abiding shield-
thinking of the stars
he put in the sky.
His throne is made of treasures
more expensive than gold.
Collected in ways
Unknown to the world.
Hand-crafted by the king
is a seat of pure leather,
made from the epidermis
of the men he bound in tether.
The thick red velvet
that borders the throne
Is their boiled, then filtered, then solidified
gore.
The shield of the king
was created with care,
While the voices
and the joices
got lost
In the king’s lair.
The king only wanted
Workers
in the field.
So he plucked out the tongues
To make his shield.
The stars that the king
had put in the sky
Didn’t glow like the others,
They sat
And they cried.
After all,
A body doesn’t live
Without a soul
Without a voice.
The king was sitting back
In his jeweled throne
Polishing his rusting shield
To make it again hone
When suddenly,
Sounds came.
THUD THUD THUD THUD
Came closer and closer
But to the king
It was more
like a million pots
and a trillion pans
Clashing together
And cracking the marble floor
On which it landed on.
Then suddenly,
He knew.
He shuffled to the window
As fast as he could
But the weight of his misdeeds
Slowed him down.
His shiny window
That got polished every day
Was being seen through
By the king.
The ground before him
lay all empty
Just grass and bushes
And more grass
And more bushes
But not one person
Was to be seen.
Where had gone
the fruit pickers?
and the bush clippers?
and the soil flippers?
Then he looked more closely,
And he saw
his favourite breed of birds
Lying on the ground
dead.
The king clamped his hands
Over his ears
And begged to hell
To take him away.
How did they
get the courage?
And why weren’t
the birds screeching?
Had they found out
what the king’s birds
really were?
But the questions were never answered.
Footsteps were hungry lions
Lunging towards their prey.
They grew nearer and nearer.
Then with a burst
BANG.
Invisible dust motes
raised from the floor
Gathering around the door
That had fallen to the ground.
Behind the door
Stood men and women and children
Holding all the knives
they could find
For plucking hard fruit
Off a tree
But now
They would be
Plucking the king
Off the throne.
Then everything was a blur.
Everyone charged at once.
The king pulled out
His shiny black toy
But before it could release,
The knives of the fruit pickers
Were deep into his heart.
A man from the crowd
took the black toy
Out of the king’s hand
And kept it
to himself.
Every fruit picker
gathered around the king.
One plucked out his tongue
One pulled off his hair
One chopped off a finger,
And soon everyone was busy
Playing in the red puddle.
So busy
That they didn’t notice
When the man
with the king’s shiny toy
crept up
Behind them
And
BAM
BAM
BAM
BAM
In no time,
He had pushed
the crowd out the door
The same one
which they had come through.
He smiled,
Expressing the only knowledge
he had even known.
His crooked upturned lips
And half-show of yellow teeth
Was enough.
He was the new king.
And they were his people.
After pushing out his people,
the king set to work.
He made pure leather
And even purer velvet
Out of the torn man
who lay on the ground.
Then set it
Against the doorframe.
Then he called out his people
To begin to prepare
His Life Juice
So that he could reign
Forever.
Then he called out his people
To bring back to life
The birds
That he had killed
To get the trust
of his once fellow
fruit pickers.
At last, he sat down.
Not as a man,
But as the king.
He was the big burly king
who sat on a gold encrusted seat
behind a strong, abiding shield-
thinking of the stars
he put in the sky.
