I SHALL WRITE A LINE - OGUNYOMI ISRAEL ABIDEMI

I shall write a line

Of an enclave, plenteously peopled:

Countless like sea sands on

The scion of the black,

Accentuating the excruciating thirst

Of a pauper’s ship amidst an ocean

Of inexhaustible abundance.

I shall write a line 

Of the pinnacles of production,

Plume-puffed by a pragmatic pride,

Where weary workers like plain pigs

Gratefully gulp cheerless chaff,

Ginormous grains, bravely bagged, banked

In barns for the bourgeoisie’s bellies.

I shall write a line

Of a season bereaved of reason

When a potent poet stoutly spewed the ink,

Madly flung the bottle far, far away

Into the deepest heart of a deforested forest,

To blow the bulwark of power

With a mallet of oratory,

Only to be honoured by the holders

Of the sceptre with a nasty neck-rope,

Hurling defiant souls to hell’s gate.

I shall write a line

Of the town-crier, monarch of words,

Who, pushed to the wall, divorced the word,

Married the sword, and marched to the front

Where monstrous murderers muttering merciless

Murmurs, cutting fiercely across the ribs

Of the wind break, crumble, crush and slam

The bones of the defensive walls.

I shall write a line

Of a devastating thunder

Which stroke the arm of a Biafran

At the brooked bosom of draught.

Paooooooo…, the battered soil hosted the burden

And a cloudburst of sands rose reluctantly

Above the crescents of the broken walls

Ah! The filament of a half Sun bemoaned

The demise of a soldier-bard.

I shall write a line

Of the Chibok, tender tendril,

Violently vanquished, stormed and carted off

By a pedophiliac tempest,

Escorted by a chariot of bigotry –

Lost and unfound in the heart of Sambisa

Like a minute grain of wheat

In the bowel of Earth’s mound.