Poetry

November 23, 2018 Poetry , POETRY / FICTION

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By

58

(a diary of Nigeria’s independence)

in between fifty & eight

is everything that a nation has been.

1960, a country is born somewhere in

sub-Saharan Africa. with a cry for emancipation,

the slave becomes a master of himself. 1963, he

designates himself with a republican rank. 1966 is

the beginning of agonies. guns go gaga; spray some

soldiers stealthily until the country is headless. call it a

coup d’état. this is the genesis of the dirges that hang on

the lips of 180 million [maybe more] human beings today.

1967 to 1970. the clouds are dark-eyed.

the sun is the colour of blood. the wind whistles

tunes of unrest through fields dressed with gunpowder.

everywhere you turn to, there is a bomb that

mascaras the earth’s face with granular bodies.

1971 to 1998.

picture the nation as a man with beards

learning to say the alphabets [growth disorder].

then picture the nation as a car. IBB [as a driver]

drives it into an ebb. Abacha bashalizes* it.

1999 to 2018.

we are the children

of Israel going in cycles.

we are the same lyrics repeated

in different tunes. nothing has changed.

we are recyclers of history, & we have learned nothing.

but… shall a nation stick

to her perambulation? 58 years

have we roamed round this familiar

mountain of retrogression. tell me, where

is Joshua? & where now is the Promised Land?

*bashalize is Nigerian pidgin-English slang that means ‘destroy’

Nigeria My COW-ntry

in a land not faraway

[where i live]

a cow is the value of a man.

dissolve the mind of our king into arithmetics.

common factor = cattle ranches minus men times cattle ranches.

if this is common factor,

then what is the square root of our king’s mind?

in the sentence of our villa,

a cow is the subject & the verb

& we are all objects & predicates.

subject performs a verb on the object.

the result is as the plague of the Nile [in the book of Exodus].

Benue is blood. Plateau is pain. Farmlands are looming deaths.

bow at the sound of a moo.

we are to

sacrifice at the altar of ungulates.

when a cow departs,

a man [or more men] must follow.

they funeralize the dead cow with the voice of a gun.

they say war is coming to the city. say the bile must rise into panic.

200 bodies break into darkness as

the day breaks into its light.

tattoo the necks with machetes.

there should be songs of lamentation

breaking out of your larynxes.

for how do they remember their ruminants

without something as rumination for their deaths?

so they leave us

a platter of burnt flesh

& a cup of haemoglobin.

the unguinal gods have been appeased.

Kolawole Samuel Adebayo is a young, budding Nigerian poet who writes on a diverse spectrum of subjects. He seeks to awaken the consciousness of men in his poems which often talk about humanity, the dynamics of love, God and his personality, atheism, theism, social justice, societal egalitarianism, the body, peace, death, life, love, and ethereality. His poems have appeared in PAROUSIA magazine, WRR, BPPC anthology, Pulse Nigeria, and elsewhere. You can connect with him via his 2 Instagram handles: @worshipholik and @samofthevoice.