And so we
Like butterflies
Roam freely the empty street
Some pictures of a robust farmland
With no succulent yield
And our lily labours
Trampled by elephants,
Pierced by porcupines—
Hope we craved enough
Cries, we’ve had enough
Enough is enough!
A new sun must rise
A new rain must fall
To wash the debris of our past
Our voice has become a toad’s grunt
Moaning like Moana
In the twilight, at dusk
Come rain, come shine,
Hoping that some day
Our path would be made clear
And a new era would arise?
Where equity and justice are the olive branch
For the common man!
Our past has been stained
In white washes, ashes and shells
Our beauty has faded
Like the cannon standing proudly at Badagry
Our mouth has been shut by tomorrow
Our eyes have been dimmed by halogen
Our house is on fire outside
Our beds are cold on the inside
Our coals are drifting
Our resource is burning.
History can’t wait
Even though a horse bite is there
The spittles will still come
Our voice is sore,
Crickety like a crooked paper
Rumpled into the bins
We have forgotten ourselves in alcohol
We are quick to smell another’s vomit
Our children stare our face
Our way is the narrow wide
That leads to George Floyd’s mill
And we stagger this crooked path
Waiting to be devoured by a lion of tomorrow?
We speak
But the microphones are off
We shout
But a clamp seals our voice
We gulp
But our sore throat pinches us
We flex
But our joints are tight
Unbolt yourself
Unborn and the burnt
Feed yourself with aches of the past
Why live on the maggots of a tomorrow?
And when apocalypse comes
Tell them we should run
For tomorrow is untrue
Unsafe, our paths
Mixed up in fangs, acnes and lumps
But where should we run?
I run, you meet me
From the firepan to fire?
When cows walk the streets of our umpires
And the players are off tangent?
Tell them,
For tomorrow is night
And today is nighter
Tell them
For those who have ears
Build up your city
Fence it, pull and dislodge
Remove far from you the northern army
Tell them wisdom
Is biting them to themselves
Tell them
Will they wait till another massacre
Before we leave
No!
Just wait a little while can’t we fix the brake pad
Yes!
It’s broken,
It’s brokenness is a yolk of egg
Never can we pick the fragments
But together
We can make it fried
Just wait a few while brother
Wait for what?
Wait, we wait?!