Emiko Aruofor
The beats went on for days unending
The pizzas, the dancing and the megaphones
The passion was thick as steaming pap
And for the first time since June the twelfth
The Mainland and the Island too
Shared air, held hands and met eyes
Brother, where have you been
While I’ve lived my life to date.
Sister, you come across as butter,
But, you sure know to roll to the beat.
From Bariga to Banana, a common line
The cane that blanlah the wife inicio
Has come off the wardrobe top
And iyawo’s eyes are cloudy and red.
So, they gathered, thousand, upon thousand
To cry out loud to see an end
To the menace in starched khaki
Throttling down on blooming hearts
That none could breathe without
The constant SAR of air expired
The talks went on in fiery tomes
Heads bow down, knees aground
Voices raised in one lament.
The spirits bent and ground by the
Unyielding yokes and shackles
Of years gone by, would either
Crack and split asunder
Or make a stand and end it here
As real and true it’s all for certain
The best of wishes don’t horses make
Without a hint of a night foreboding
Darkness dimmed upon the waste
The frenzied tempos and waving arms
Gave way to yield to marching feet
And the drilled staccatos of glinting barrels
Sent to turn the reign of future kings
To crimson crowns soon embedded
In the freshly drenched tarmac
Of a road heading nowhere but hades.
If there were echoes of a revolution looming
The deep, heated breathe of hell descended
Gave way to fragments of shattered somnolence
As the grey curtains parted to a dawn
Of stunted dreams and shuttered speech
The hallowed grounds that heaved with hope
Now gave testament to shuddering tales
Whispered in the parable of scattered shoes and splattered shirts
Of lost bangles and that single earring
Haunting memories of souls gone
We know not where
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