POETRY

THORN IN OUR FLESH

The hearts that once cared have vanished

Loved ones kidnapped, silenced and isolated

Gallant men and brave women annihilated

Youths slaughtered in their prime and dreams left unfulfilled

Children brainwashed, recruited and indoctrinated

To betray and turn their swords against their very kindred

We swim in this weird ocean of Indelible anguish

To make us absolutely livid at the dawn of a new era

Ambassadors of callousness, brutality and mayhem in our midst

Heralds of carnage clad in masks and hood equipped for suicide undertaking

Showing no respect for the wombs that bore and breasts that suckled you

Decorated perpetrators of atrocities beyond your comprehension

How dare you snatch that priceless piece our damsels preserved for years?

Smacking many hearts with your stained hands and sour saliva

Hypnotized in the compasses of invisible sponsors

The trauma in us has defied all Analgesics in the world

Psychosis let loose swinging your instruments of human impiety

 kra,ka,ka,ka,ka,ka,kriiiii gbum, gbum, gbum rattle and rent the sky

Heaps of lifeless and dismembered victims are witnesses

Explosions here, inferno there and walls plummet

The toils and sweat of many years lay in ruin

Communities reduced to rubble and sacred places desecrated

Our land suddenly metamorphosed to graveyard

How can the dead rest in peace?

Victory is neither in the slitting of defenceless throats

Nor the gruesome termination of vulnerable scholars

Escapees and few who survived the massacre

Render endless dirges in reminiscence of their missing kith and kin

Heads bent over kneels in endless meditations and mourning

Their tears may never dry but heroism echoes in their hearts

United with our men and women in uniforms the hydra is in flight

Firm, hopeful and stronger than before we remain.