I spend my time alone
Silent,
Thinking
Of someone special.
We gaze into each other’s eyes
Silent,
The feelings we share
Are too much for words.
I lie in my room
Silent,
Tears dripping down
I have lost a loved one.
I sit at the far end
Of a noisy moving bus
Silent
Looking out
Unaware of the clatter.
I miss the pleasant days
Cut short in their prime.
JOURNEY TO THE ROCK
Remember the brave hearts
Those schooled young men and women
Strapped in brown boots and the other emblems
That remind us of their ongoing rite of passage.
From sunup to sundown
These patriotic hearts
Dampened by the terror of bomb blasts
And daunted by stretching queues;
Courted ballots, ink and registers;
As they pressed on
Fulfilling their extraordinary national duty.
Even with the lingering fear gripping them
From hardworking school days;
The fear of long treks on job-search missions
The fear of breeding hungry children
The fear of roadside deaths
The fear of fear;
They decided to perform;
To believe and to hope
That this time,
The ballot will speak in lieu of naira notes,
Freewill will be aired not coercion by the gun;
That this time
We all shall not a legion drops of water
That will never wash a leopard’s spots away;
That this time,
We will be angry acid that corrodes with mad rage
A nation’s callous metallicity that built up slowly.
Remember the female heroes!
The pregnant ones
That set out at dawn to give you
their own share of power;
That bore the sun’s wrath with patience
As the unborn protested
Kicking and squirming on the inside
Berating their custodians
For inflicting pain even before touchdown…
And please remember those very special heroes!
Who with the pain and weight of the unborn
Sat in the sun till labour pains attacked
Remember the courageous others
That joined hands to bring the babies to earth
Right there at the polling unit!
Could you forget the aged?
Remember their crutches and walking sticks
Their frail legs, dim eyes and trembling fingers
That determined to give you power
The right way-through the ballot
In the hope of reincarnating yesteryear’s joys.
We have put our drops of acid before you
In a big big pot called THE PRESIDENCY
We have bequeathed you our power-all we have left
Will you empty it on us,
And give us another sweet dose of pain?
Or will you splash it on our common enemies
And justify the release of our power?
Don’t answer with your words
We are now deaf
Our eyes and what they see are now
the only approved gateway for belief.
I feel for the corp members. I feel their disappointment.
@kaycee: It is pathetic that our pre-election zeal and sacrifice is yet to be compensated by those in power
…And like that, Nigeria has forgotten… I think one of our greatest problems is a short memory…
@Raymond: True. Memory loss of the civil war, of coups, of our terrible past and the hope of a better tomorrow.
Lovely poems both. If only the people in authority could listen…..
Well done!!!
@easylife2 Thanks a lot sir. If only…if only.
The thing to do would be to keep banging on the walls…banging on their ears in the loudest way possible..
This is nice.
@seun-odukoya: Thanks a lot. I do hope the massive ‘Occupy Nigeria’ protest that followed the subsidy removal would usher in a new era of ‘governmenting’
So let’s keep our fingers crossed and believe for a better Nigeria…
At the same time let us change our attitude and behaviour. The government is corrupt because we are.
@seun-odukoya: Gbam!
@Seun, true talk. @Chemo, straight to the point poems. I think the President is yet to believe that we willingly voted him in. He believes his money did it.
@babyada: Gbam! I don’t think the electorate have ever fallen over a presidential aspirant like the way they did for our president during the last elections. Let’s hope that by 2015 we would all smile and be happy Nigeria moved forward a bit.
The guy na…
Make I no talk..because whether I like him or not…na my president.