Home bids farewell.
The feathers that flap will float.
Early birds in flight,
leaving behind their nests
in escape from the estate in commotion.

The road leading home is dark,
darker than the oil spills in Ogoniland.
Lucky are the émigrés—
pilgrims in search of light.

Salvation took flight from here,
and emptiness now dwells in the worship homes.
Only optimists live in the mental facility,
now scarce with drugs and food,
with the inmates surviving with less care.

And only the caregivers breathe the air of freedom,
popping champagnes at the table for dinner,
wines amid squalor and hunger.

The citizens of the estate have become hailers,
hailing the masters of the manor.
Some hailers are proud of their chains,
while some wailers are happy with their corn.

This sad disturbance leaves me wondering.
Does happiness truly live here as believed?
Is the ballot paper truly a tool for change?
since they enthrone looters and
decide nothing but bloodshed.

Perhaps, if I had not dined with coward Horatio,
I might have led the rebels to Lucania.
But my vein is intoxicated with phobia.
My shipwreck washes to the port of Golgotha,
near the crucifix of those before me—
Activists who fought for the multitudes,
only to be abandoned alone to their cross.