A poem dedicated to Leah Sharibu
By PHILIP EYAM-OZUNG
Whether we left
Our doors unlocked
Or had our homes
Violently broken into while we slept,
This moonlit and starry night
Of shared meals, drinks
And storytelling is despoiled
By masked intruders
Who take sleeping homeowners
And their households hostage
Give us three wicked choices…
***
Stay home
To be robbed and raped…
Abandon our homes
With a promise
Never to return again…
Or pay ransom
To be allowed back
Into our homes
On the condition
We agree to pay more ransom
As often as the intruders demand!
***
Who’s that rare genius
Who can outsmart
The combined devilry
Of blood-thirsty mercenaries, cultists
And sundry merchants of death
Who have neither respect for life
Nor any fear of God or government?
***
Whatever our choice
We’re in a choking bind
Surrounded by dark forces
Allied with faceless figures
Reputed to be more powerful
Than the king!
***
This evil alliance insists
On something more
After stripping us bare
Of all that we hold dear
Leaving us beaten, wounded, bleeding
Too weak to weep to the depth
Of our marrow-grinding pain
And our inconsolable sense of loss
Of all that makes us
Who we are!
***
But our biggest loss is our king
Who has not only left us
At the mercy
Of all the dark forces
Arrayed against us
But remains aloof
As dare-devil cultists, mercenaries
And unforgiving merchants of death
Overrun our hearts, hearths and homes
Ruin our farmlands
Repeatedly sending us
On genocide-type mass burials
That have turned our community
Into the Land
Of those most senselessly murdered
And countless hunted and haunted survivors
Who are mostly little or nothing better
Than the walking dead!
***
Our biggest loss is our king
Who has also brought upon us
The ill omen of seeing him
Without his crown
And rather than prove
Safe custody of the crown
By his sincere repentance
Of his strange idling on the throne,
Insists on tempting us
To provoke the wrath
Of our ancestors and gods
By granting his prayer
For a second coronation
With a new crown!
***
Who will tell the king
That true kings
Are never crowned
More than once
In a lifetime?
***
Who will tell the king
That his coronation
Was never the reason
For his enthronement
Nor his signature helpless lament
The charm offensive
That attracted the kingmakers
To his side?
***
Who will tell the king
That the prayer of all survivors
Is for the return
Of our homes, our streets
And our farmlands
Where we can search
For our lost whetstones
And whatever ruins can offer us
To light fresh fires
Where we can cook
Those mystical meals
That are best known
To rekindle hope,
Ignite new dreams
***
The least a king
Who refuses to rule
Can do
Is return the crown
To the kingmakers
And along with it
Our remaining hostages
And defiled corpses
Of the many innocent souls lost
To his most inexplicable
And tragic abdication!
*
Eyam-Ozung writes from the United States
