Entry #4De-maning

“Writing is speaking without being interrupted,”

So said Jules Renard, in a breath held in.

“To write well is to say much in few words,”

Anatole France, in a single stroke, set down these closing words.

Between the lines, I found my space,

A place with no noise, no race, no disgrace.

Where the quill dances with discretion,

And hides its truths beneath intention.

I love to write... not to impose my voice,

But to sow signs, just for oneself, by choice.

A taste for verse, for forms turned aside,

Where meaning wears shadows, carefully applied.

To say without saying, to paint without showing all,

That, for MrDNEJ, is the art of the word that fits the call.

For in the rhyme, or the echo of an image,

There often hides more than a simple message.

And sometimes, around the bend of an ordinary week,

Something surfaces, strange, almost the stuff of legend.

It does not shout, it does not strike hard,

But it leaves, in silence, an echo that bites…

So the quill, accomplice to my dreams,

Took the scene and dressed it up as fiction...

Not to run away, nor to erase it,

But to tell it… without quite naming it.

Thus was born this sketch drawn tight with tension,

Where the image stands in for indignation.

De-maning... a word all on its own,

Carrying in its rhymes a spark of awakening.

A thrilling tale, strange to recount,

Of raging lions brought in to be tamed.

But what are they, then? Not wild beasts at all,

Rather the relics of an ancient shore.

The dinosaurs, five years in the arena,

Have weathered storms and far-off seasons.

But nothing could, for all the effort spent,

Wither the flame of the Master of lofty fate.

With a sidelong grin and an eager air,

He threw himself into his noble art.

Mane after mane, he set to work with care,

Styling every one, never tiring of his part...

And in their eyes, a hint of dread,

For each one wore, not quite knowing why,

The vivid signature of a bygone morning:

Our late Father Charles Konan Banny, in memory, carved in hair...

The Land of Hospitality, birthplace of the cut

That defies the ages without a single crack,

Saw this week, in a strange clarity,

The past rise up without a word of warning.

The lions, proud, their manes so full and grand,

Watched their plumes fall without a sound.

But history, cunning, never tells it all:

Was it a rite, or just a whim of taste?

Must they endure De-maning once more,

Or will the Master grant redemption?

No one knows… the Master's tools are mute,

For the walls hear what is never said.

Too many questions hang in the burning air,

Glances are exchanged, heavy and charged.

So I, a mere witness beneath the neon light,

Trace the echo… the voice of the quill: MrDNEJ, the name.

Thank you 🙏😔🙏

#MrDNEJ