We truly believed things would change
after years of sweat and sacrifice
planting seeds in borrowed soil
watering them with pieces of our youth.
Day after day, we sat in rooms
learning how to nod and pretend
studying to lead, to build
to heal nations with thought and pen.
Month after month, we challenged our minds
told ourselves we were shaping futures
learning to analyze the world
while slowly unraveling our own.
But no one warned us
some seeds don’t bloom in this system.
They lie untouched beneath polished shoes
as we wander office to office
resumes soaked in sweat and regrets
chasing hope down corridors
that echo with the same reply:
“We’ll get back to you.”
Categories:
joblessness, 12th grade, jobs,
Form: Free verse
Fix your shrewd gaze appraisingly upon a poor man,
Tell me what you see,
Take your time and scrutinize a jobless graduate,
Tell me what you see.
Surf through the eyes of convicts and prostitutes,
Tell me what you see,
Take your time to scan the face of a homeless and hungry citizen,
Tell me what you see.
Is there any point living in peace and harmony without money and food?
What's the point of going to school without a job at the end?
Can you state the benefits of voting when you are still marginalized?
Is there any point living freely and still die in poverty?
What then is the essence of having talents when non is harnessed?
How can we cope after acquiring skills without adequate empowerment?
How can we make heaven with religious intolerance?
How can we promote national unity, consciousness, growth and development when the minority groups are neglected?
These are questions I have always asked myself.
It's high time we make up our minds,
To fight, win and die gloriously or to remain
A well fed free cowards in our father's land.
Categories:
joblessness, corruption, humanity, pain, political,
Form: Free verse
JOBLESSNESS!
Oh joblessness, you aweful, aweful thing!
I know you again and the misery you bring.
Never do you keep away for long, do you?
You evil doer, a form of a devilish
mind, you seek to demise the good of mankind.
You are not a child of the Earth, but a weapon
against it. You shall not grow and those who nurture you
reap what they sow; they too, your fodder and foe.
A pacer you made me, from door to door, besotted am
I to even the score. But, whoa! I am not poor! Be still so
the great book does say, for I am God, and will make a way
Your enemy will triumph over you, you evil thing!
Employerbility! Rear to my mind, but I kept you away,
The slander, the lies, the witchhunt, the callousness of your way,
your masters, without backbones know what to say.
Bitter am I for the future is bleak, they chose my words
And I could not speak. Friends do say, you come and go,
How long you last, I shall never know.
Categories:
joblessness, anger, anxiety, betrayal, break
Form: ABC
Nigerian graduates,
Suffering because of unemployment,
believing in government’s empty promises.
A meaningless hope on a janus-faced entity
governing sadistically.
A Stewart Annie Everestus's poem © 2019
Categories:
joblessness, jobs, pain,
Form: Cinquain
AJoblessness is rough ask me
Friends vanish believe me
Your Family rejects you
And your other half blames you
Joblessness is tough believe me
Your incapability become laziness
And your jokes only bring sadness
You become a broken piece of the puzzle
That fits no more
Like the gloomy old days of the struggle
Joblessness is no good believe me
Society subjects you to constant surveillance
As if your situation was an act of defiance
Powers of the universe retrieve your soul
As I play no role and my life is out of control
Categories:
joblessness, sad, universe,
Form: I do not know?