For Fallen Biafra…
In Appreciation of
Ngozi Adiche Chimamanda,
Who spat out that dead “Half of the Yellow Sun…”
When the Sun
refuses to shine,
And the Air stood
still mourning its loss,
Yet, the trees
swayed, they swayed as if moved,
Moved by the
Spirits of those long gone,
Their
memories-Faded pictures of Our lives’ tattered Albums.
We were drunk with
our own urine,
Mixed with the
sweats of our labours
And the
“butter-like” mucus flooding down our noses,
Our excrete filled
our stomachs,
Salted with sugar
made from the stalks of bitter-leaf tree
Steamed with the
remnants of a month-old palm wine,
We drank our wine
from their gourds
With the barrels
of rusty guns as drawing straws,
Emitting the
sweet-flavour of gun powder and hot bullets.
We sat on fiery
cannon balls,
And walked on
thorns.
…yet, the Priest
came and told us-God is alive!
We scoffed at him
miserably.
We do not doubt
the existence of a God
Who sat in His
stately chair up there,
And watched all
these happen to us.
What we seek to
know is why His ways seem unjust at times,
We heard Sleep
eludes Him,
So we can’t ask
Him if he were sleeping
When they
butchered us like cows.
But why has the
blood of our fallen brethren
Not cried out in
vengeance like that of Abel?
Or has God
suddenly become tired
Of Judging the
world He created?
We existed only
for its sake-Existence,
Our homes were
abandoned anthills shared with spiders and worms,
As healthy sores
made love with our Skin
Birthing
Pleasurable pain of “uncoaxed” orgasms.
Where was the
world when we died…?
We died, yet we
lived…
Silent defiance
coursed through our emaciated bones.
Let them kill us
all,
Our souls will
live to haunt their future!
It is not
suffering…we do not see it as that,
It is living life.
This is the side
of the coin life has offered us,
And accept it or
not, won’t destiny prevail?
Still, we know our
cause is just…but reasonable?
We came from the
Land of the Rising Sun.
Where the blood of
our massacred kinsmen
Have drawn
beautiful patterns on the black earth…
The country of the
unsung fallen Heroes,
Not of war, but of
its casualty.
Yet, the world
shall never forget our story.
The story of a
race, who despite all odds
stood against evil
with their lives.
“Ejima m, Bia”,
let’s go home.
It’s late already,
and we found no food today.
We shall cook the
corpse of your dead lover.
We need protein!
If the Sun refuses
to shine, We will make it shine…
1:42pm, 19/03/2015
Aunt’s Home, Lagos
