In the kitchen of lies,
they cook us drudgery hope that
got us salivating for years to come.
Heads have queued underneath
the naked sun licking away
the remnant of our kwashiorkor joy that
greeted the power transition.
And a school of hunger was re-enrolled in
our stomachs that awaken crucified
dreams for years to come.

As I turn to the bookshop of violence,
breath parted ways from the owners’ bodies
across the cities where a chimney of cries
arose from a chapel of wailing in the
company of abductees who are shoved
into a room of panic. Death shoplifts
from their attic of hunger. A
volcano of anxiety erupts in their
chests; shuttling between escape
and ransom.

Our village of pride ties us down
from looking inward from the cesspit
of corruption that wants to eat us for
brunch and here they go again borrowing
from our Santa who art in IMF because
the cube of promises could only cook for
campaigns, not valid for the inundated
masses whose intelligence has been
crushed by the previous administration.

But there is this café of hope
our forefathers built before independence
unlike their curried 10-point agenda
jollof (supplementary) budgets
pepper-souped palliatives, and
indoctrinated salary increment.
A house built with saliva shall be
brought down by the dew. If we would
save ourselves a carnival of shame,
heed the homily advice written a foretime on
ethno-religiosity, and therein put an
embargo on the road to rehearse for a coup d’etat,
this House shall be great once again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Ashe Walker on Unsplash