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.
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