The Executioner's Dream By Kwen Brew

THE EXECUTIONER’S DREAM BY KWESI BREW

                              I dreamt, I saw an eye, a pretty eye,

                              In your hands,

                              Glittering, wet and sickening,

                              Like a dull onyx set in a crown of thorns,

                  5          I did not know you were dead

                              When you dropped it in my lap.

                              What horrors of human sacrifice

                              Have you seen executioner?

                              What agonies of torture men

                  10       who through nights and nights of pains,

                              Tongue-tied by the wicked sapper;

                              Gazing at you with hot imploring eyes?

                              These white lilies tossed their little heads then

                              In the moon-steep pounds;

                  15       There was bouncing gaiety in crisp chirping

                              Of the cricket in the undergrowth,

                              And as the surf-boats splintered the waves

                              I saw the rainbow in your eyes,

                              And flash of your teeth;

                  20       As each crystal shone,

                              I saw sitting hand in hand with melancholy

                              A little sunny child

                              Playing at marbles with husks of fallen stars.

                              Horror were your flowers then, the blights red bougainvillea

                  25       They delighted you.

                              Why do you new weep?

                              And offer me this little gift

                              Of a dull onyx set in a crown of thorns?

CONTENT ANALYSIS of the POEM

The Executioner’s Dream is the executioner’s recollection of the hazards of his chosen profession. The poem is a campaign against ritual murder. The poet sees an apparition of one his executed victims and decides to make a peace offering for that purpose of restitution.

 

Line 7 – 11, show the trouble state of mind of the executioner whose job is not made easy even with performance enhancing drug such as “sappor.”

The mind of the executioner went back to the peaceful days of his childhood.

 

We see vividly the executioner’s harmless and symbiotic relationship with nature, the physical harmony of the vegetables and insects within which he had played as a child.

The executioner cannot reconcile his innocent childhood within his present sacrificial mood.

He is certainly not happy with his position as a blood sucker and chief tormentor of harmless people within and outside his environment.

POETIC DEVICES

Metaphor: Line 18 and 24, “I saw the rainbow in your eyes.” And “Horrors were your flowers then….”

 

Rhetorical Question: Rhetorical question can be found in line 7, 8 and 12.

 

Simile: Line 4. “Like dull onyx set in a crown of thorns,” The entire poem is a hyperbole. 

 

Irony: Line 3, “Glittering wet and sickening,” “I dreamt, I saw an eye, a pretty eyes,” and lines 6 – 7 – “I did not know you were dead, when you dropped it in my lap.”

 Onomatopoeia: Line 4, “Glittering and sickening”.

 

Alliteration: Line 10 and 13, “…nights and nights of pains” and “…tossed their little heads then”.

 

Assonance: Line 14, “In the mood-stepped pond”.

 

THEMES:

1.     Innocence of man

2.     The desire of man for repentance

3.     The need to have conscience

4.     The evil of sin