LIES
Above the voice
Of reason
Lies scream aloud
To be heard.
Like the lie of oil wealth
Spreads as wildfire
Doing the land
A great and grave harm.
Lost forever is the voice
Of the people
The voice of violence
Walk our streets
Flow in the creeks
Leaving trails of blood
As communities are pitched
Against one another
The police are overwhelmed
And the military called to war
At the home front
And my compound is on fire
——————
LET SAMUEL NOT DIE
Like a gathering wild wind
Sweeping everything in its path
The area boys came upon a boy
Hands joined for a common ploy
And in that mad moment
A day was gone
Eclipsed before the sun could rise
Lynched in the market square
Before eyes accustomed to brutality
Worse still, before a reeling eye
That captured the stale tale
And the infamous denial
Moment by moment
Denied boyhood by his papa’s land
The big country
Denied by his helpless mama
Upon seeing death galloping, like a horse
Her way in the hour reason failed
Denied by all good men
Who saw nothing
Who said nothing
Who did nothing
To hold back the hand of the clock
——————
SO ROUGH A JOURNEY
The road to NEW NIGERIAN land
Has been a TELL tale
Of ghastly political wreckages,
From election bumps
And deaths trap political holes.
We see DAILY TRUST
Disappear from faces
Despite the people’s resilience.
Seasoned DAILY TIMES
Cannot tell, why in the SUN
THE NATION rode under clear skies
The Kaduna express way.
Making stops at every village
Assembling corrupt godfarters.
THIS DAY, the drivers turn
To Lagos-Ibadan express road
But the rising smokes and destructions
Only confirms the terrain’s
Ghost of the Wild West
Making OBSERVER(S)
Who CHRONICLE road mishaps
Raise questions,
How can this neglect be?
Can these people survive
Another civil war?
Every day is NEWSDAY
NEWSWATCH is now our pastime.
The town criers scream
All they are allowed to say;
“Military assaults on the Niger Delta”
“Militants kidnap foreign oilmen”
“Military burn down village”
Like burning Kalakuta Republic
Echoing all these around the world
As ENTERTAINMENT like the
Twin birds of fortune;
CNN and BBC do is sheer profiteering
But hearing the silence
Of the STATEMAN and GUARDIAN
Traditional farters is troubling
As the motorcade takes East West express
At a season of high TIDE
Of blood and oil spills.
The price of neglect
Which gave birth to political banditry
And losses the drivers cannot afford.
Shamefully (s)elected men await
The Queen’s TELEGRAPH
While the tribe of INDEPENDENT judiciary
Who should stand as VANGUARD watches
In ridiculous wigs, like women
As the bus continues its journey
Relying on the northern STAR as navigator.
——————
(c) Pious Elemchukwu Okoro