Libéré, enfin

On tirait le feu sur nous

Au campus, alors que

L’on ne s’y attendait pas

En 69.

On était étudiants nombreux

Provenant des pays divers

Et on était dans

Trois bus

Et on protestait contre

Quelques faux pas

Parce qu’on se sentait

Trahir par

Les autorités.

On était jeune

Et on ne voulait que

La justice, donc,

On était sorti des véhicules

Et on marchait en chantant

En paix.

Mais des moments

Dramatiques après, le sang

Coulait,

Cependant, les bals volaient

Toujours

Et puisque

L’on n’avait pas eu accès

Au nombre

Des morts,

Pour pouvoir,

Au moins, pleurer aux poitrines

De nos collègues

Qui sont partis au Paradis,

On a décidé  

Qu’on a eu

Assez d’une tragédie

Imprévue aux mains

Des gens qui

Devraient

Nous protéger.

Quoique l’on savait

Que notre pays naissant était

En guerre,

Et que l’on ne pourrait pas

S’y retourner,

Tout de même,

On était parti

De l’enfer

Et, en amitié,

On a été accueilli

Par un pays sympathique.

On était fatigué,

On dirait même, découragé,

Et on avait faim

De loup, mais

Finalement,

Prisonniers de conscience

Que nous étions,

On était libéré, enfin.

Le 22 juin 2013 

A WIFE'S NECK SAVED

Ijeoma's thoughts freely
A course wildy ran
Mercilessly,  logic, time
Crushing
Necessarily, perchance,
In that order
Flowed not
Defiance, on her face,
A path labyrynthine
Marked
A countenance morose,
Sculptured by taunts,
Shouted
A spirited enthusiasm,
Unmatched by none, 
Ranted
Explanations,
Devoid of sorrow,
But alive with venom,
Ceased not,
Listeners prejudiced,
Mindlessly impatient
Elders, sullen-faced,
to befuddle.
Gathered then, a mob,
By self-restraint
Surprisingly tempered,
asking:
"Where went your master,
woman?" ,
"My husband's keeper,
I'm not", she replying.
Wailing sticks,
Wildly wielded
Shameless brethren
A defenceless victim
Cowardly brutalised
Hovered deftly, alas,
Up in the sky above
Vultures rampaging
Elsewhere for supper
These blood-suckers
Must tonight  look
From evil forest
Nnodi's unexpected return
His poor wife's neck
In the nick of time
Miraculously saved;
Men indeed, vicious,
Innocent,
Unconscious woman's 
Foes all,
Mightily shamed!

Lagos

JESUS FOREVER KING

Recollect I can, on TV, Nixon and Kennedy, in 1960, squaring it off

When, from a nightly prep class, boarders at King’s were let off.

In a testy debate, JFK glowed; his charisma, as endearing as ever,

On a foretold, land-slide victory by opinion polls, voters didn’t waiver.

Fifty years on, difficult it has been for the world to sigh and move on;

Fitzgerald’s 1963 unsolved murder to brush aside, allowing life to go on.

Conspiracy theories won’t go away, half-a-century after the brutal act.

Yet, the number of theorists keeps growing by the day, and that’s a fact.

Sleep you tight, John, knowing that ask what your country could do

For you, that you didn’t, but your good deeds hearts many endear to you.

We, who your legacy cherish, know you’re with Jesus, forever King,

Not forgetting, there’s no killing a man whose smile ever will a bell ring.

Lagos, November 22, 2013 

FLOODED WITH LOVE

Stripped of leaves, huge palm-trees looked like match-sticks

Making a mockery of a tourist haven;

Shorn of houses, streets, strewn with debris, looked like dump-sites

Making a mockery of city-planning;

Devoid of hospitals, side-walks, filled with corpses, looked like a mortuary

Making a mockery of our humanity

But enter our collective humaneness:

C-130s bearing food and medicaments;

Doctors, nurses, NGOs infused with compassion;

Tacloban super-storm victims flooded with tender, loving care

Making a mockery of divisiveness plaguing the world

Lagos, November 26, 2013

MY SEPTEMBER BLUES

My sweet mother, every morning, bright and early,

At an altar her children and wards led in prayer,

After which, behind every ear scrubbed clean.

Dressed and fed, each, a happy song singing,

On the way to school wended, as happy as a lark.

As busy as a bee till sun-down, Mom by a smart few

Trusted was only intricate trinket cast in gold to stock

At her lucrative Tom Jones shopping centre end,

Where she, fabric also, to a select clientele, sold.

Of her memorable days, enough cannot be said

But Saturday Derby stood out as an exception

In more ways than one, when she, on horses

Bets placed, raking in a fortune on a good day.

Mother’s story incomplete ever would be, if untold

Remains that street-wise lady’s unparalleled knack

For staking good money on a thank-God-its-Friday

Night pools betting featuring EPL teams as pawns.

But all too soon, one year to be exact, after she,

A rare gem, her eldest child off to university sent,

Recall if I may, ill, alas, fell and to hospital taken was.

With no light at the end of the tunnel in Sixty-Three,

Until her September Eleven death my blues became,

Ebeke’s cheerful countenance not once wore a frown;

Although, then, sad days had grown into sad weeks.

Lagos

Jan. 15, 2013