(Dedicated to Eric Onyebuchi Jibero)

What an excruciating blow
You have dealt me!
A brute's uppercut offloaded
A smashing hit delivered
Like a monstrous boxer
Desirous of fame
With an amateur to tame
At this one bout too many
Wherein you have hit me below
The belt as a sadist deriving joy
From my anguish
And relish
From my enormous loss

Oh mower,
Nay hewer,
Can't you feel anything?
Can't you see?
Can't you reason for a while
With your prey?
Can't you pause to ponder
Just for a brief moment
So you can take a good decision
Choosing the right tree to fell
Instead of bringing down a mere
Sapling with your obedient saw?

Why deal sweeping blow
On a mere rookie?
Can't you distinguish
Between the ripe and the unripe?
Between the hen and the chick?
But hawks like you can pick
Meat amidst bones as Moses
In a basket amidst bulrushes
Of Nile to spare from Pharaoh's
Infant-eating sword
And in wisdom did you wait
Patiently to visit Methuselah
At the zenith of hoary hair

Master of double standards
Eyes gorged
Conscience seared
Heart cold like frozen chicken
******* dry and drooping
Like a hag's
A ruthless scorpion
That stings even babes

Rampaging ravager
Notorious brigand
Marauding machinery
Eliminating without scruple
Whoever you choose
Whose hireling are you?
God's or Satan's
Or both?
A blank cheque you flaunt
To cash as you wish
But can't you condescend to a negotiating
Table when a mere sapling is marked
For a cutting down?

Being a professional boxer
Long in this senseless trade
You should have seen the heap
Of pain you would leave
In my heart by this cruel blow
Against a budding amateur whom
You have served voracious earth
Whose stomach is a leaking tank.

Amiss! Amiss! Amiss!
Something is chronically amiss
With my beloved country
Spiritually and physically rich
But apparently presented as poor
Billions of our money given wings
Like hawks that  disappear
Soon after chicks are forcibly stolen
Trillions stashed down the drains
To fertilize parched lands
Where hussies and gigolos live
Plants of  greed
Nursed and nurtured by the elite
A few insatiable pigs
That profess religion                  
But know not God

Mothers strive to outdo fathers
I weep, I weep, I weep profusely
But there is none to console me
And now my heart has a new guest uninvited
A nagging excruciating pain
Would I pass on weeping
With no solace coming?

During a certain Christmas service
Or Mass as some are wont to say
The officiating priest asked widows
To step forward for a special prayer
Of blessing and favour, intoning
That God remains their undying husband

A certain woman sitting beside her
Husband on one of the front pews
Jumped to her feet hurriedly
To the bewilderment of the poor man
Who promptly pulled her hand
And reminded her of what the priest said

But the enraged woman, looking askance,
Swiftly brushed her husband's hand aside
As though loaded with filth, and retorted,
'Are you alive when you can't provide
The needs of your family, even at a season like this? '
Stunned and speechless, the man's jaw dropped as though
He was a church mouse caught prancing on the pulpit
And the congregation roared in derisive laughter
But from me to all husbands, 'Merry Christmas
And a prosperous New Year in the name of
Our Lord, Jesus Christ, the head of all husbands
And, indeed, all men.Amen.'

My loss is my burden alone to bear
In sacrosanct equanimity
But sympathy does come calling
In drips and drabs to attenuate my pain
Great talk shows seen
Some lend me their eyes to weep and wail
But vanish fast like a ghost seen at noon
Cos none knows as I do the depth of the pain
That I bear

The pain of sympathizers is on their flesh
As water poured on rock
Mine embedded in my bone
And feeds on my marrow
Family won't invite us,
My pain and I together,
To a breakfast meeting
My peers won't
Invite us to a business lunch
Friends won't invite us to a dinner
Cos the world stops not for anyone's
Tragic loss and accompanying grief

It is like an aircraft in flight
That ought to land for its passengers to alight
And one passenger I am
Swathed in the turbulence of this jet
Being baptised by unruly weather
Sympathizers are like car owners
On pleasure trips who could pull up
At every turn to attend to their fancies

My loss is my burden alone to bear
Not yours whose feeling stands
Aloof akimbo as I howl,
'My brother, oh my brother,
Why leave me so early
Heaping in my heart monumental pain? '