Poetry

Reuters photo

By

Olaniyi Ololade Moses

Massacre

This poem begins with a torrential downpour in my eyes

With a lyric composed for boys with rotten dreams

with a dirge

written for girls with shattered pride &

with a threnody – written for souls that dissolved into blue memories.

This poem is broken like the echoes of pains in my land.

Every day is a revival of disaster &

a crusade of mourns,

of pains & wails for bodies

that are no longer holding breath.

Look into my eyes, you’ll find a broken city – a country that carries grief in its chest.

Search my eyes again, you’ll find a city I’ve never been to- say Kaduna –

a reflection of unceasing bloodletting.

Say Benue – a playground of broken bones & moribund swings.

Every state has its own demon.

Say my country – peace

doesn’t breathe here.

Let Peace Reign

(For my country)

If you’ve never been to war,

If you know not the ugly face of war, the throes of burning, the cypress;

You won’t know how to beat this drum,

And how to break yourself into the rhythm of this tune.

A boy went home yesterday

And found the remnant of his father’s skin

Broken. Beaten. Bruised. Littered with fleeting flies.

Hell burns beside heavens,

And we feel the heat in our havens.

Nobody will ever gather the split ashes of these burnt souls.

For we know this street is hot,

And we don’t want to be hit.

How do we live and trample long on this soil,

If we never dance to the rhythmic tune of peace,

How do we sail to the shore, if we allow war to storm our ship?

For we don’t know what tomorrow will bring…

Let peace reign and sink into the depth of our blazing heart.

Let love lead and dwell in our shivering homes.

Olaniyi Ololade Moses

Olaniyi Ololade Moses is a Poet and writer who hails and writes from Omu-Aran, Kwara state, Nigeria. He started writing poetry three years ago, and his poems have been published in online blogs and anthologies.

He is currently an ND 2 student in the department of mass communication, Kwara state polytechnic, Ilorin. He believes someday, his poem and other writings will be used as an instrument of change in Nigeria and Africa at large.