Photo….
Do you not see?
Cos our sky is murky…..it will rain
Do you not hear?
Cos our atmosphere is tense…..it will rage
You must be sons and daughters of defiance
You are at It everywhere….
On my radio, on my TV
Like teens that you are not, you make noise.
In your den of offices you sit with infamy
We cry outside of pain and poverty
You unmoved, you are mute, your mouths are filled- food.
…shame
Why should our citadels of learning be leading?
You do not have need for them
You can out-fly for injections for aches-
Your artificial atmospheres won’t shield you for long.
Pots + holes on roads so kill many
You do not feel them- do you not ride in so lot of comfort?!
Our plights, you know not of? Or do, but you are but fools?
Cos my brother said to me yesterday;
It makes you a fool to go-by a need you can fill without doing.
Streets and lawns here are worst of their kind any place other
And what matter it does, you say?
Bad; they even serve shelter for a lot…
Shall he not sleep? Where cold and rain hammer him hard nights
Then he comes forth at you stretching his dirty bowl-
Skinny arms, hair more gray than dark, feet hard as timberland soles
You from the abundance of your pocket:
That which you owe him but somehow now owe
You throw out a note with pride
God bless you he says with smiles whose watt rivals the sun’s
…that could only mean a curse.
We will fail to forget-
You got your mandate by maiming
….that is what you remain
Our brothers dared you in battle
All that was theirs you dismantled
And does that not scare us? Yes it DOES!
It looks like that to you at least.
Now rich, now drunk, now unfaltering
You wallow in wealth
Shall we wallow-on in its dearth?
Synthesis….
Do you not hear? Do you not see? I asked you
Your skull is full of deceit- try to remember
Enough is the shame and rag you have robbed us in
We will strip you of your loot; we will, before long
Our dear land we will get new seeds
She will come truly green, our lives there-in will come white bright.
Poem Credit: ‘femi Isimikalu (olufemith@gmail.com)
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