Hunger pangs shoving us,
Screaming jail: bandists' verdict.
They have stolen our bail bonds;
Same politicians!
None to set us free.
Convicted in Kankara,
Jailed in Kagara by the bandits
Hammering our innocence away
We look to the cactus for a respite;
Not even the rocky hills could lend
A pitying glance our way.
So fiendish are the paths that carpet the thick forest.
Streams we passed chorused in lullabies,
Drawn from plated epitaphs.
Chefs from a sacred tribe
Hold forth in all facets of country.
Their cooked broths choking us to death:
That man and country all clamped in jail,
Face to face facing each other's folly,
In this uncompleted building now our jail.
To think of coming out of water with fire on our backs,
Will it be extinguished by colonial chefs
Who flagged off this uncompleted building?
-
Author:
Ifeanyichukwu Onwughalu (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: February 18th, 2021 12:32
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 25
- User favorite of this poem: L. B. Mek.
Offline)
Comments4
This is like a fist to the stomach. Wishing you and those under this regime strength and respite. An incomplete building has promise as well as peril. Half-finished, you can't tell if it's going to be a prison or a resort hotel. Peace to everyone in Nigeria.
Phew! I don't feel at all qualified to respond with comment to this. It would be arrogance for me to try.
So please accept my best wishes together with the hope that the social/political situation down your way may improve one day soon.
This is such a powerful write, despite everything I know for a fact that things will change.. The empires before us are now long gone, nothing stays the same.. may we all become aware and imagine (like John Lennon's song) a better way of life.. 🌹
'Convicted in Kankara,
Jailed in Kagara by the bandits
Hammering our innocence away
We look to the cactus for a respite;
Not even the rocky hills could lend
A pitying glance our way.'
how still
life can become when lost in search impactful words, I hear you my brother,
I from this side of the ocean preach understanding - so easily, while you draped in the shackles of that derelict building of consequence, see things so much more differently, I feel the despair in your lament in the depths of my inherited grief-stained blood..
but still, while we have the option let us choose to find a path to togetherness, for revenge or retaliation only fuels this horrid reality's: unending continuation..
stay safe and keep hope's guiding light - alive,
thanks for sharing an important and great write dear poet
To be able to comment and rate this poem, you must be registered. Register here or if you are already registered, login here.