Silence
Nigeria & the New Year Presidential Gift
SILENCE
Silence! Stillness! Silence! Inaction!
All guises of an impending eruption
The only sound of merriment
Is in the coterie of increment
I wish there could be joy in this clime
Like the pleasure you get from my rhyme
Our busy rails, ports and roads
Are our platforms for relieving our heart-loads
On boards, boldly written are our words in hues
Is it our turn to be deprived of shoes?
We trek the streets proclaiming a new birth
While our detractors soar like birds in mirth
Silence! I encounter silence everywhere I ambled
Is it true that our peace has been gambled?
There are only two persons I see
The first person, a damsel, I glee
I will never have seen her, thanks to subsidy
But to Keats "beauty is truth, truth beauty"
I would have fallen for her seductions
But I resisted her like subsidy attractions
I would have blindly succumbed, rejecting truths
Now I discern why all hands protest, even youths
Our pains increase yet no decrease
All we patients, diagnosed for the same disease
Our misery, their fortress; our words, our refuge
We persist, our tears for justice in deluge
Empty promises sadden our weary lobe
Hence; we seem the dystopian part of the globe
The second person, like the Ancient Mariner
Expressed his pains and fears in this manner
"Once upon a time, in their kingdom, animals –
Birds, reptiles, insects, aquatic and mammals –
Rejoice over the death of their brutal king
In unity and hilarity, they dance and sing.
'At last,' they said, 'it’s now authority, no more power;
Our words and woes will be respected in the new tower;
No despot reign, but a shepherd for us all sheep,
Tender-heart and loving; his promises, he will keep;
Our promise land! A new captain to steer our ship
He will use the mace to direct us, not as a whip'
All - ignorant of the dead despot’s fairy - are whining:
For he was alive and in a shepherd’s cloak, ruling"
Then the tale teller asked, 'Alas, Is that their lot?
Who's now leading, the shepherd or the despot?'
Copyright © Ajayi Angel-Simon | Year Posted 2012
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