AQUARIUM
We are fixated at jellyfishes;
The snaky eels,
They are stunted;
They never really
Grow beyond this.
The aesthetics is savagery,
I dare not say.
This place is sacral.
We keep mum
And maintain utmost decorum
In your sanatorium.
Our silences strum
And fill up
The vacuum;
The chandeliers dazzle:
Um
Um
I scrambled
For dictum
To convey our lost momentum.
So far August has been
Chatty and cold;
To keep warm
I have gulped the seas
Of hot teas,
Drank litres of milk,
Consumed wholegrain wheat,
Looking for the feat
For dreams hitherto constipated.
Yet no ounce of dietary
fibre and fat.
Now I seek my own,
My fawn-
She is tall, fair and plump
Just like you
With elaborate cheeks
And wild eyes like that of a cat.
———————-
POLITICAL LEANINGS
These days
You get into a taxi downtown
And scan
The face
Of the chauffeur on the wheel,
Because
You like to talk
And not sulk
Along the way.
You want to belong:
To be seen to be empathetic
And altruistic.
These days
You look closely
At the mask
To see the leanings
Of your good neighbor,
To see what divide
He belongs to.
The man is rustic;
His eyes look far North
But you think
His titivated eyelashes titillate East.
You want to bemoan
The state of affairs
In the country
But you are covert.
You speak your dialect
Nwanne!
He is mute;
He feigns ignorance
And keeps driving.
You try again;
You ask for his state;
He tells you
To forget
Where he comes from.
You think he is visceral,
Possibly from the Middle Belt:
The crimsoned Rivers of Benue
Or the hinterlands of Taraba;
You don’t get it.
You get to a crossroad,
There are no traffic indicators.
You lose your enthusiasm
Amidst
The flurry of hostility
And the clamp
On the right to freely express.
———————-
Poems © Victor Azubike
Image: Pixabay.com