The charlatan went into fervent mumbo jumbo,
Throwing the crowd into a crazed uproar,
But the stiff remained in cold limbo,
Unperturbed, and oblivious, of their stupid frenzy.

The dead man left trouble alive,
The quick are stuck in a power race,
The blind woman with sword and scale,
Scolds all her children and sends them to school.

If Ondo is used for settlers
And Ogun is a river
Tell me about Oyo, an empire

You mispell Gwosh as Jos
Recognised Sokoto, a market
Far away from Osun, a river

Lakes is to Lagos
As Kogin is to Kogi
And Kebbi is synonymous to Ka'abba

Janzama, women power inspired Katsina
But Kano was a Blacksmith
While Kaduna means Crocodile

The people of the golden soils of Jigawa
To the river Imo Mmiri
They don't speak Gombe at all

Take me to the hills of "Enu Ugwu"
Following the hills in "Okiti"
Without navigating through Iduu

All Ebonyi are "Aboine"
Close the Delta that marries the atlantic
And Oyono, makes you Cross River

Don't say Benue, say "Binuwe"
Balga, Yelga, Salga formed Bayelsa
And I love Kasashen Bauchi

"Anyim Oma Mbala kwenu!"
But I love ladies from "Kwa Iboe"
Only legends understands this

Tell them I told you
Adamawa is a warrior
While Abia is a coinage

If I missed your state
Go back to the history books
This is just a drill...

let's dive into the thought of that Benue woman.
let's see through her sorrow carved separately,
how many children are born to die before noon?
1966 saw this on the tail of her skins proudly,
till 1977, pogom of lunatic fringed our thoughts,
We enslaved our reasonings to the ashes of right, everything without a comma seems right
to us & we failed to allow the oceans break in the cities on our cheeks without killing them.
these memories are the genocide &mythical histories that keep fading faster to hurt us.

It was a happy day on the face of the sun,
Erinma went to farm &never returned home.
We searched all the delivered forest but
could not have a trace of her glitched doom.
It was a sunny day, a bleeding white day,
Ayola went to the stream and never came back.
We only saw his blood spoke of herdsmen,
His spirit ran towards Enugu wet shrines.
All we saw was his pains assaulted fairly along the confluence border of River Benue & kogi.
Our thoughts are no longer golden to hearts.

It was a fateful baked day of excitement,
Ene went to school & never came back for her
mother to pick the gaze of the smile in her
pride, she was never seen but her shadows
left traces like voicemail to the road to Sambisa.
Still, strength formed like cascading sweat on
the faces of our trembling lips, no one spoke,
No one spoke of this evening even their Aso could not come to fight for what has become
of us in these two cities where boys are enemies to girls breaking the route which the wind blew.

We learnt to hide cocroaches in every cupboard,
&our leaders taught us this & how suffering could be beneficiary to our hearts like tonic.
Genocide taught us how to deny our own the right to live & live life like the living ought to
live. they made knives part oceans of water,
They made us a guest in our own home!
a house won't be a home anymore when our young ones are killed in a traumatic chaos.  
where we eat are the places of mortals bodies
a deafening silence hung on every spirit here.

Defining gels of life gathered like firrwood,
On the pupils of our eyes, skulls are draw to drown us in the drawings life came up with.
We are treasure of genocid messes like *****
Of ballardic poems written with a sad pen.
Let's develop this film today & tomorrow,
If you renew your license of mind to fit in
then, the blood of those killed will bear us
Witness to the craving wind looking forward
to hearing a word from what we made here to be.
A land of blood and cracked sorrows.

A Poem: Stay Alive Brother (A Poem Against Domestic Violence On Men)

If you do the crime
You'll do the time
Stop killing your spouses
A man is naturally flirtatious
If he opens the bonnet of another
Why not check yourself

The boys are speaking out
Broken boys turn broken men
The men are now speaking out
Don't let her get to you
If you can't take it anymore
Please take a bow

With fire power you reign curses
Decapitate and maim them
You cut them in their prime
Just because of jealousy
No longer shall we be quiet
Guys, if you must, sign the dotted lines

I would rather be single
I would rather be a single Dad
Than be with you, an abusive partner
There is more at other side
Marriage is like admission
You desire Unilag and end up in Kogi

For better for best it is
Not for better for death
Wake up! My friend
Lest you want to answer from the other side
Stay alive brother
Report all domestic abuse

So, before you pop the question
Be sure to also ask
"Will you stab me?"
Never again shall a brother fall
To the uncontrollable anger of a spouse
You have been advised! Be wise!

Babatunde Raimi
Author/Life Coach/Poet
+2348178827380 & +2348035063895