Life has no meaning, likewise
Death has no meaning, for
Sometimes people who are alive
sometimes pray they're dead;
Which one is then preferable?
Children grow to grow old
Elders grow to live younger
But life has no meaning
If death doesn't follow
Everyone shuddered and glared at me
But my words will live longer than I could
Death and life follow man,
There is no one opposite to each other
Everyone wail, be happy and solitude
Ancestors, like who?
Some men could be elders,
One may acquire wealth-suffered & non suffered
Can't make one an ancestor, but
young one may die, said he's an ancestor,
When he operated morally while on earth
Leaving a living legacy that
The unborn would trail, poise and ponder
Not to derail
Aberrant and dogged many may be
Quoting from such a legend's sayings
like I knew not Newton, nor, Shakespeare
But shepherds they are to my soul
Like Azikiwe, Awolowo, Balewa
Suffered communism and colonialism
To bequeath independence in Niger-area;
And as the ogoni born Marxist
Spilled his blood
To disentangled the shackle on his people?
The crude oil they own, but crude ordeal they're rewarded
Kuru has beget a monkey, since then
Cat has beget a lion, since then
Goat has beget a cow, since then
That future has no end , since then
As strange things happens in the land
without nature being provoked
To wake doom against these
But who said he is dead?
Underestimating a wondrous son
Whose Acumen envy it brought
To the macrocosm many feared him
For such a brain they longed they couldn't
who wrote genres of literature
Like a child whose paramount duty is to cry
having been born newly into this world-less cave
The wise sought for solution
Like me sought refuge in 'the singing anthill'
When the news pierced my heart
That the gworo fed General, now late
Has sent him, the one fighting for socialism,
To the cemetery
Tears dried in its bank, also
For having burnt with startle,
But groan became the hysteria
Haunting all over me like a phantom
That a brain 'good' has been pinned to the earth
The brain whose actions
The self-imposed general feared
would stop him gathering his
Unenjoyed wealth, his loot
Children were sobbing their breathe
Widowers were gnashing their teeth
Widows were wailing their strength
The General made rice , garri scarce
For the days in office he took by force.
Some deceased are not dead
Some are conscious they had done good
While sub-conscious some may be
But the general doesn't have a place in both?
The Ogoni born Marxist,
I hear him spoke peace,
That peace should prevail
Are his brethren enjoying the dividends?
The one his blood was spilled?
That taxes gotten and have not gotten
could have an Account in the land.
Immortalized tomb he lives,
Immortalized cemetery he lives,
immortalized name he bears,
And you said he is dead?
The dead
The General died with his wholesome;
Left and Right, he died
With his Certificate, he imposed himself
With General, army didn't attest
With English spoken, he has no accent
That also lacked vowel&parts of speech
In cemetery he may not be living
But somewhere he may be gnashing teeth
And tom-tom was heard
The Ancestor
The bane, he says
Discern one another in the heart
Love one another and be brother's keeper
Some elders are not ancestors
I am safe where I live
You'll visit me one by one
But leave legacy that could
Be more than my blood?
Love, I say you should leave
For life has no meaning, likewise
Death has no meaning, for
Some people who are alive
Sometimes pray they're dead.
Copyright 2005 Odimegwu Onwumere
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