Poetry

By

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha

 

 

DEAR CHINUA ACHEBE

 

 

At night, in the village square

At gathering for moonlight tales

I tell the dwindling hope of my people,

In a theatre it unfolds like a movie

I see their agony,

In a theatre like a sugeon stitching a torn flesh,

I feel their pain

I watch them wail and weep

As they swim in aches and navigate the trauma,

Penetrate the pores of hardship

And permeate the rocks of starvation

Because the center holds no more

Things are falling apart

And they are no longer at ease,

They mourn like a widow mourning her murdered son

And a virgin weeping for her slain soldier.

 

From the river bank I watch

As the storm disbands fishes

And waves blow up beaches

I watch tide sweep the shores away.

 

Titanic, yet sinking

Rowing, yet steady

Floating, yet drowning

Coagulating debris and fungi

Dead, like a dead sea.

 

Far from the madding crowd

I watch the struggle

As they labour and toil in vain

Harvesting vanity and waste

The outrageous disaster,

And the flooding blood

A rhetorical question

None dares ask nor answer.

 

Dear Chinua Achebe

Things are falling apart

I think there was a country with the arrow of God

Maybe they kept it like those that captured “the ark of covenant”.

 

The banner of illiteracy engulfed our land

And chain of ignorance betrothed our fate,

The fetters of superstition clouded our peace

Then came the egocentric god to rescue

The god that indeed came against us, used us against us

The stranger that bought our ancestors

Enslaved our fathers, married our mothers

The tyrant that we served, guarded and worshipped

That one, that broke our center

Cracked our wall and made us fall apart

The one that sold and bought us for nothing.

 

Dear Chinua Achebe,

He bewitched us to practise witchcraft on ourselves

Till now things remain fallen apart

As though our womb bore no talents

As if our land was thorn instead of crown

As though we had no patriarch of gold

Brave and bold,

As if there was no matriarch of ruby, sacred and consecrated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THEIR WAR ALARM IS RINGING

 

 

We have no job

We have no food

We have no road

We have no shelter,

They treat us like strangers

And use us like slaves

They kill us at will

And force us to be still,

Something tells me

Their war alarm is ringing.

 

They invade us by night

And take their spoil

They hunt us at sunrise

And haunt us till sunset,

They taunt us by dawn

And torture us till noon

They feast on our blood

And cause their beasts to flood,

Something tells me

Their war alarm is ringing.

 

Bandaging lips that shout

Blinding eyes that cry

Whipping souls that lament

Tearing wombs that conceive,

Killing unarmed protesters

Burning other worshippers

Maiming those that flee

Lynching they that pray,

Something tells me loud

Their war alarm is ringing.

 

Our lands erosive and corrosive

Our resources cursely ours

We dare not wail

We ought not resist

We see their parade

We see their band

We hear their command

Uncertainty is plenty

Compatibility is guilty

Reality beckons probability

All in unison, all in uniform,

Something tells me louder

Their war alarm is ringing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha is a young writer from Nigeria. From a family of eight, including both parents she is the second daughter but fourth child. She read Estate Management and has some experience in Banking and Broadcasting.

She has published some works in a Liberian magazine, Ghanian news platform and an Indian poetry publication.

Many of her works have gone abroad for evaluation and publication. She wrote the longest poems/rhymes in the world, yet to be published. Writing is life.