MEMORIES

They hurt,
They cut across lands
Seasons
Dreams and memories

They make a brother bow
They make me ask how
The land we knew got plowed
By fowl hands with the plough

‘This world is ours to plough not to plunder’
Ours to breed not kill
This world is ours to pray
For us, the preys
This land is full of memories of dim lights
Shy emotions
Curl minds
Flimsy instincts
This world is ours to remember not forget
Ours to survival in pains
Ours to smile even at death
Ours to give up goals to those
Whose inhibition is abortion?

My memories are cold
It freezes the man that attempts
It comes like the tempest on a lowly noon
Swift in mind’s blindness
Children to adults
Mean men to walnuts,
Memories…

Nine months in sojourn
Hunger played me friendship
Asunder bade me welcome
In his veranda I knelt
In stories that have refused arrival
Under the moon-shed-tears of flares of gas
I fasted,
‘Lord, we are human, make life meaningful’.

The land is ill and pregnant
Fine smell of skunk paces in revolution
Corridors of passive good, rules
‘I am memory’
No money,
Let me be sold
For a pence
For these memories marry me till death in Ogoni