Brent Stirton
By
Akeredolu Tope
The Underhand Journalist
Boom!….. Another bomb blast!
Blood everywhere on the television
Scattered flesh and shattered bones
But there you are glued to your television
Another bomb blast!
yellow tapes and red cross
Wailing kids and bewildered traders
Running commuters away from the scene
There you are glued to your screen
Another blast! this time
A little lass had worn the fire
Innocently she had meandered
Into the thick forest of busy heads
Again there you are glued to your screen
The men who sit to start the fire
Inside corrosive walls of great conglomerates
Men who shake their blood-stained hands along teary promenades
enjoy the television like you do now
They envy the sound of thier own voices condemning the fires they started
Abominable abomination!
Why do primordial souls enjoy the sorrows of sorrowful soul?
Since now a journalist you have become
Bearing blood-stained news like the gospel
You long to hear of another blast
Maybe yet another blast!
so you can feed the gluttony
Of your eyes and the vampire of others
So you can re-open sealed wounds and lace them with pepper
You tell yourself; the war is far away
But forget! Like light wars travel fast
This war would travel on the horses of your silent conspiracy
In the ship of tribalism across the ocean of innocent bloods
Haven’t you been told that war smells
That it stench chokes even oxygen?
Why do you think soldiers desert?
They long to feel the silence of the air
To hear once again as swallows sing suspended in the sphere
To hear the school bell tolling on a Monday morning
To see tutors spank treacherous lads
away from your blood stained screen into sober souls
For those who sow the giant seed of discord on the soil of our great field
Will hope to send you when reaping comes.
They, housed inside sealed walls,
Away from the booms!
Hysterically mock us; even so they scorn us.
How can you claim to know a city you have not seen?
You do not know how flesh is ripped-apart no!
Or how to bury broken bones and shattered carcasses of loved ones
Neither can you mime a dirge for burnt men of this world
But on this crevice of despair lies the biggest ounce of hope
Leave your television screen and go plant it.
Everywhere; My Poetry
Do you see that little girl over there
With her kinky hair
Skipping a yellow rope on naked soles
With her lazy mates?
Or that little lad moulding miniature mansions
Formed from chocolate toes in the sand?
He is poetry; she is poetry
Do you hear the wind whistling at harmattan
Do you see her lock away lazy bones in their beds
Or how she gives reason to new-weds to spurt
The sun and the harmattan in a coalition to cajole
And tie palm wine tappers under coconut shades
They are poetry; the sun and harmattan
The horn that you hear from a busy street
Shouting away the cruel time
And the goats defiling laced canes to snatch a ware
To the bitter commuter throwing tantrum at another
Or the beggars down the cross road bowl stretched
They are poetry; the beggars, the commuter; the hungry goat
Poetry all of them
Now if you move down south
To my land of the twin-mountains
Where hills engage one another in the battle of heights
Where velvet sheets had turned brown with age
Where masquerades combat to spectacle
Where lively monkeys skate on branches
There you’ll find poetry
From the lost stranger finding his way
To the pickpocket wrangling through the crowd
From the bell man showing is shores
To the school girl buckling her shoe
Or the court man selling justice
All is poetry!
Even when these men come like a sun in the night
To bury, buy and pillage our rights
With branded bags and bridled tongues
When reversed patriots come to preach
And fill our ears with packaged pebbles painted in gold
Poetry all of it
Even when life’s unfriendly friend
Knocks my door at odd hours
When the firm grip of fear
Holds me below my belt
I still see poetry in my fear
Since she knows the tune to every note
On the keyboard of life
No Comments Yet!
You can be first to comment this post!