RE-VISITING NIGERIA

(Holding fire and water together)

I don't know why the rain keeps writing the
name of Nigeria on the ground in every corner.
I don't know why we are this broken and
tortured like the fragments of the dust.
I don't know why the Dapchi girls returned yesterday while their chikbok friends are
still in captive.
I don't know why every street in Nigeria is
known with an imprint of good leaders.
I don't know why we cry yet point accusation fingers back to ourselves, who is fooling who?
I don't know why the sun cry here with a
closed lips.
I don't know why we keep writing love stories
while our brothers and sisters perish in shame!
I don't just know why but I think you should know.
Are you not the one that collected a cup of rice, clean notes and Abrahamic lie from them?
I won't speak ill of this land again, I won't!
I won't judge any one, no, I won't for the
sake of my unborn children.
No, I won't for the sake of what happened to Dele Giwa and Saro Wiwa.
We poets are abnormal psychologically.
We paints abstraction from the abstracts creating fears that might hurt those true patriots.
My muse fell out from me yesterday night,
When my television opened to a scene of genocide.
Men on pants, women on trousers painting out the tears made for people inhabiting hell.
Their laughters and smiles were printed to be archived among themselves.
I won't speak ill of this country, no, I won't!
Because of my unborn children, I won't!
But I will tell just one tale for them to remember
Of how monkeys carted away with our monies!
Of how Snake swallowed our currency!
Of how good our leaders are, I think you know!
I have been holding these demons in me until last night they came out horribly in fierce protest to revisit this land again.
To tell of those girls raped under the bridge,
To ask why boys like me are named after me,
To speak against shadows of death lurking here and there.
Nigeria is grey and black, red and violent,
Retrieving this oceans of mysteries from the hidden abyss of grave corruption is the passport tabled on the pyramid top to recreate a versatile muses of a lyrics calling for a right to write our rights.
Take a walk to memory lane pass your shadow, that of your father, mother & grandmas
You will see a Nigeria in another angle trying
to free herself from the grip of corruption, then, revisit her tears and struggles you'll know we
are the cause of our own misfortunes.!



©John Chizoba Vincent
From_A_Pen_Refusing_Frustrations