In Chibok,
An IED finds it way
Into the mind of a savage sect
And made good use of the emptiness therein.
In helplessness,
Some school girls are bundled up
From their school compound;
Taken for a noisy ride into Sambisa;
From where they will forget
Their mothers’ voices.
On the tube,
There is a very loud lady
Anathematising the “sharing” of blood
In Borno.
When she is done,
The media is awash with the sound of
‘Na only you waka come?’
As if it is a joke
To ****** young Nigerian girls
From the four walls of their classroom
Into the coldness of the wilderness
To dwell amongst wild beasts.
To learn new lessons;
Weird lessons.
In bed at night,
My wife talks of
Church bombings;
Internally displaced persons;
Slaughtering of citizens
And the role of government in all of these
And the security of our country
And I pulled at the hairs
From around her second mouth
To make her change the topic
And she falls for it and changes the topic.
The white bearded Mallam
On the rickety bus to Yola
Fixes his eyes on me
Like some foreigner
And I feel the fire
All through the trip
And I burn and burn and burn
Like the victims of Nyanya motor park blast
It feels good though to know
What it takes to
Be burned into countless degrees.
But after three weeks
I am back to normal again
I can feel again
My senses are back again
Working optimally
And I can hear again
As the presidential pit-bull
And the black parrot
The one that used to be
In the fourth estate of the realm
Begin to mete and dole out
Slippery speeches, speeches you can’t hold
That comes upon our ears
To push out every substance
From our heads
Everything except this load of hopelessness
This bitter bile in our mouth
This unwanted fetus
That no one would claim
And then the hash tags;
The media craze;
The count down
The women in red
And the men that joined
The bring back our girls
The Michelle Obama
The celebrities from across
The noise, the sweat, the blood
The ****** thighs of those girls
Their torn underwear
Their wails, their sobs, their pains
To say the least
The echo, the deafening echo
And how we wave them all aside
And look the other way.
Like it did not happen at all
Like it was just a movie
Directed by a director
That must be a sadist
We sweep it under the carpet
Like our other numerous
National issues
But I won’t write another story on betrayal
I won’t write another poem
On how a nation
Could forsake her innocent children
Instead I would write of a country
Steeling, steeling, growing
Growing resilient to emotion;
Becoming many times dead
To any feeling
Tearing its tissues to pieces
And building new ones
That will be senseless
Lifeless
Bloodless.
And the noise
And the noise
And the noise.
In Chibok,
An IED finds it way
Into the mind of a savage sect
And made good use of the emptiness therein.
In helplessness,
Some school girls are bundled up
From their school compound;
Taken for a noisy ride into Sambisa;
From where they will forget
Their mothers’ voices.
On the tube,
There is a very loud lady
Anathematising the “sharing” of blood
In Borno.
When she is done,
The media is awash with the sound of
‘Na only you waka come?’
As if it is a joke
To ****** young Nigerian girls
From the four walls of their classroom
Into the coldness of the wilderness
To dwell amongst wild beasts.
To learn new lessons;
Weird lessons.
In bed at night,
My wife talks of
Church bombings;
Internally displaced persons;
Slaughtering of citizens
And the role of government in all of these
And the security of our country
And I pulled at the hairs
From around her second mouth
To make her change the topic
And she falls for it and changes the topic.
The white bearded Mallam
On the rickety bus to Yola
Fixes his eyes on me
Like some foreigner
And I feel the fire
All through the trip
And I burn and burn and burn
Like the victims of Nyanya motor park blast
It feels good though to know
What it takes to
Be burned into countless degrees.
But after three weeks
I am back to normal again
I can feel again
My senses are back again
Working optimally
And I can hear again
As the presidential pit-bull
And the black parrot
The one that used to be
In the fourth estate of the realm
Begin to mete and dole out
Slippery speeches, speeches you can’t hold
That comes upon our ears
To push out every substance
From our heads
Everything except this load of hopelessness
This bitter bile in our mouth
This unwanted fetus
That no one would claim
And then the hash tags;
The media craze;
The count down
The women in red
And the men that joined
The bring back our girls
The Michelle Obama
The celebrities from across
The noise, the sweat, the blood
The ****** thighs of those girls
Their torn underwear
Their wails, their sobs, their pains
To say the least
The echo, the deafening echo
And how we wave them all aside
And look the other way.
Like it did not happen at all
Like it was just a movie
Directed by a director
That must be a sadist
We sweep it under the carpet
Like our other numerous
National issues
But I won’t write another story on betrayal
I won’t write another poem
On how a nation
Could forsake her innocent children
Instead I would write of a country
Steeling, steeling, growing
Growing resilient to emotion;
Becoming many times dead
To any feeling
Tearing its tissues to pieces
And building new ones
That will be senseless
Lifeless
Bloodless.
And the noise
And the noise
And the noise.
In Chibok,
An IED finds it way
Into the mind of a savage sect
And made good use of the emptiness therein.
In helplessness,
Some school girls are bundled up
From their school compound;
Taken for a noisy ride into Sambisa;
From where they will forget
Their mothers’ voices.
On the tube,
There is a very loud lady
Anathematising the “sharing” of blood
In Borno.
When she is done,
The media is awash with the sound of
‘Na only you waka come?’
As if it is a joke
To ****** young Nigerian girls
From the four walls of their classroom
Into the coldness of the wilderness
To dwell amongst wild beasts.
To learn new lessons;
Weird lessons.
In bed at night,
My wife talks of
Church bombings;
Internally displaced persons;
Slaughtering of citizens
And the role of government in all of these
And the security of our country
And I pulled at the hairs
From around her second mouth
To make her change the topic
And she falls for it and changes the topic.
The white bearded Mallam
On the rickety bus to Yola
Fixes his eyes on me
Like some foreigner
And I feel the fire
All through the trip
And I burn and burn and burn
Like the victims of Nyanya motor park blast
It feels good though to know
What it takes to
Be burned into countless degrees.
But after three weeks
I am back to normal again
I can feel again
My senses are back again
Working optimally
And I can hear again
As the presidential pit-bull
And the black parrot
The one that used to be
In the fourth estate of the realm
Begin to mete and dole out
Slippery speeches, speeches you can’t hold
That comes upon our ears
To push out every substance
From our heads
Everything except this load of hopelessness
This bitter bile in our mouth
This unwanted fetus
That no one would claim
And then the hash tags;
The media craze;
The count down
The women in red
And the men that joined
The bring back our girls
The Michelle Obama
The celebrities from across
The noise, the sweat, the blood
The ****** thighs of those girls
Their torn underwear
Their wails, their sobs, their pains
To say the least
The echo, the deafening echo
And how we wave them all aside
And look the other way.
Like it did not happen at all
Like it was just a movie
Directed by a director
That must be a sadist
We sweep it under the carpet
Like our other numerous
National issues
But I won’t write another story on betrayal
I won’t write another poem
On how a nation
Could forsake her innocent children
Instead I would write of a country
Steeling, steeling, growing
Growing resilient to emotion;
Becoming many times dead
To any feeling
Tearing its tissues to pieces
And building new ones
That will be senseless
Lifeless
Bloodless.
And the noise
And the noise
And the noise.