Many moons ago,
Majek sang a truth too heavy for melodies.
Only a few, with ears unclouded, caught the thunder in his ago, Majek sang a truth too heavy for melodies.
Only a few, with voice.
He sang of the land of dreams where hopes quietly drown.
A paradise draped in illusion,
A despair that wears designer clothes with smiles for the camera.
No doubt, the envy of the world,
Yet within its marble halls, pain takes selfies with privilege.
Shades of colour march unarmed from boardrooms to schools,
In glances that whisper, “You don’t belong.”
Hmm, a free world bound by invisible chains.
Here, right here, the air bleeds fear.
A medal of shame pinned to every chest.
The North trembles to the rhythm of gunfire.
While the South wakes to the chant of a shrinking map.
A fragile call echoing through cracked horizons.
Those who hold the cross count in thousands beneath uneasy soil that no longer weeps.
Those who write from right to left,
Lie cold beneath the same indifferent sky.
Now, clays of forgotten prayers, martyrs of a faithless age.
What moves our leaders?
Wrapped in earthly pleasures with horns of fans.
How they love islands far from the echoes of gunfire!
Too kind to our forceful sleep,
Too gentle with the bloodbaths,
Too cruel to the living who beg for breath
in all abundance.
And now, the eagle circles again among the voices of wounded preys.
Chanting “peace” like a rehearsed hymn.
But history whispers through the piss in the toilets from Libya to Iraq.
So I speak, not tempted by the shiny apple.
Yet slithering in the name of peace.
While our feet sink deeper into the mud of neglect.
Let the man who boasts, “emi lo kan,”
Sit upright before the mirror on the wall.
Fix the noise!
For power without wisdom is the loudest silence.
Fix it now, before the bubbles of urine are served by the helping monarch.
#GodsonOsarenren #naijapoetryfest #poetry #nigeria #politics #protest #situp #freedom #nokings
