Poetry

Reuters photo

By

Michael Tomiwa Bello

Wailings

Jos killings

The sound of doom hits the street,

Walls of happiness fell flat with no stone standing.

Screams of darkness broke the tear gland without will

And now the lyrics of sorrow scribble our tongues.

My pen is bleeding out quickly

Bleeding with the blood of pain I hope will not last.

The groans of Abel the farmer resound

In a land, the soil where the right to live is geographically banned.

A land where the arms of herdsmen is permissively rattled,

And the breath of man is ceased to ease the lives of cattle

In my country, a neighbor can’t be trusted anymore,

Coz he has a cutlass he can use on anyone.

We sought safety through our thumbs and PVCs,

And left the shield of umbrella to grab the broom of APCs.

We hoped all things would be made safer

But alas, the afflictions and menace were rebrewed

Oh, that the nakedness of the poor can be covered up with a coat

But no, it is rather butchered mercilessly with our long arms.

The homeless are paraded like ants

And the young ones are left to live as orphaned slaves.

The white on the flag is stained with red,

The green offers space to the dead

The eagle that should give strength,

Has crooked wings and a bent neck

A nation where peace and justice should reign,

Has harbored skulls and tears, unnamed

If only ghost of innocence could scream,

Then our ears would be filled to the brim.

While the South lives in joyful unity and faith,

The average Northerner and Middle-Belter is left to wallow in hopeless fate.

The hungry black cotter lives daily in fear of how to survive till the next day,

While the angry white scholar greedily protests loudly for his weekly pay.

My heart is bleeding out fast,

Though I have great hope as high as a mast,

Yet I call to all men of the soil far and near,

Let all live harmoniously like the ‘wheat and the tare’

Michael Tomiwa Bello

A Mathematician, Public Speaker and an upcoming prolific writer with sweet taste for poetry.