The Great Cold II
Till sunshine swamps the recluse, and rover
cold betides when the grim wind blows over
While triumph nor rout has still to be owned
men that yet bear flesh continue cold-toned
The moon has gone about the earth, sixfold
while these fell times do it guard and enfold
It is trailed toil which men please to discuss
The Pestilence will tell plagues’ worst on us
The last whistling which proclaims a winner
is unmade but man’s restraints wear thinner
Prophets that rated this year fertile grounds
now uproot all planting, and honour bounds
Every foul seer now wears more face masks
Each face in the eye of shame weakly basks
Covid-nineteen ninjas; they mask their fright
or mask in hues that meet their outfits’ right
When your hearth is open to breaths, of late,
choose to knock before unlocking your gate
Before crossing a stream, clap as some plea
because our co-earthlings spread to the sea
These days, a whistle may at night be blown
One may yell a name at cold nights and lone
Sepulchral flutes from a distance will squeal
A shut-earred man’s loss of smell can reveal
Who likes their food hot so as to keep warm
for the cold, bears their throat in a sore form
Who still let their throats unwatered and dry,
or smeared with irritants shall have them fry
All nasal tissues long-plagued and inflamed
now strike noses runny and by cold claimed
Nostrils lie stuffed, for the ill wind fired dust
Noses steal rheum into their rooms but rust
You sneeze if objects stick inside your nose
but, here, exiled harm piques the nasal hose
Who coughs eats no sputum but lets all out
One’s food intake is challenged by this bout
Malaise, congestion, chest pressure, aching
and fever in children leave hearths breaking
The savour of breathing spurns every sense
Every soul seeks the least joy to commence
Orgasm makes fair friends with our distress
Whoever weds some shall seek no mistress
To freeze it, one pours egg white on a ghost
How, now, do we seize this one, or her post?
All who wear waist beads against fell spirits
Hearts deem, your sinew, this sway dispirits
Unless probes score an airplane’s size lying,
bear that a foul’s weight keeps it from flying
Mannered as though marriage-ready virgins
our minds dress anew with striking edgings
We lay a mental sight which no face stands:
Our lots, written on and with our own hands
Frontward, to their destiny, each soul treads
but who slipped into pits yet grace the beds
Disruption sowed in earth thus keeps adept
Still, the fell wind has long left here ill-swept
A cloudburst of needles prick still-frail skins
Our ailing flesh baths this downpour of pins
Sunshine and rainfall will at once bath earth
till a rainbow greets the irked sky with mirth
Most dreams are stifled in this world-corner
Who sleeps on their gold awakes a mourner
The most unsafe possessions say the seen
Who enfolds theirs may on the ageless lean
As we press Frederick to serve the last rites
the young awake the slumbering birthrights
He will not keep this grand craft, his, further
This fire so past his patience creeps farther
Where is the dizziness that shook this land!
Own it, your monster you crave not to stand
Bear this being you bent to brave your fears
Lord Lugard, you can place us without tears
The young cry out of their roofs to be heard
They inhabit roads with passions so stirred
Their voices discomfit foul heads in crowns
Whoever learns their sorrow with ire frowns
When the old crave to rob the land till death
the young beg to lead as it gasps for breath
So, lanes lay objectors with sores and scars
The young effort’s entreaty prays: EndSARS
The Special Anti-Robbery Squad’s strengths
have fed on the youth and to tearful lengths
Here, the youth call on the anti-youth squad
and its sister structures to cease their fraud
Eight among each ten dwellers of this realm
cross police bloodlust that does overwhelm
Like a fire, the push creeps past its mothers
and thus, by the hands and hearts of others
To protest turns a debt youth mourn to owe
They wish to march that do partakers know
Big names are called, to commit their spirits
Hands are invited, who do dry throats spritz
The famous abound who share in this push
but to let their fans’ calls they cannot shush
A fine young government is kept quite soon
The crusading draw hearts that not impugn
The throng is grown by the shortfall in work
and closure of school doors which do all irk
Soon, the head of state prepares to respond
Of the young reactions, his heart looks fond
Much strain is thrown to the powers that be
With the young demands, they gird to agree
The SARS are said to end but this toil sticks
because this rule about the SARS has tricks
The push has grown beyond police outrage
to groans telling all blows on the young age
Marches breathe peace; vigils hold candlelit
Each prayer is steered by who well handle it
Now, the entire planet, from us, takes shape
The grim earth is alight from this soil-scape
Every dwelling heart and voice enfolds ours
To perfume this soil, from above fall flowers
Illumined notes greet from soils sown away
to bless this toil that finds their roots astray
Distant sores heal who this toil does suture
Now, their young awake to keep their future
What a time for the just and resigned souls!
Such an hour to pride on one’s earthly roles
A new epoch just takes our long fought soil
The youth espy all hopes for which they toil
The land each hour avers of missed billions
The tollgate each day costs its lord millions
All these for the ‘lazy youth’ roaming streets
when many a taught mind not lives nor eats
The old heads bearing crowns all devise ills
to cast, into the young and fair minds, chills
Tares are sown amid wheat: to taint harvest
To nurture this, simple youth are harnessed
State trucks sidle into streets, bearing louts
who are placed to fuel harm and stir doubts
The police awake armed against all throngs
and chase after the borne agents of wrongs
As the crowned tag the young outcry amiss
common soles are urged to do no road kiss
The young rallies do not bear that language
well, rule their course a hard one to manage
The twentieth of the month with ruin wakes
thus that the core of this land always aches
At the first hour, wakes this lord of the town
to support force, for putting crusades down
All may cry cut of their legs, not their hearts
Youth keep Lekki tollgate, failing seen darts
Dreams are not so away from the real world
Their travel routs the dark in the eyes furled
Mirthful dreamers will say mirthful sleepers
Sombre dreamers picture sleeping weepers
State workers keep the tollgate before dusk
undo recorders and lights, in tones brusque
This dusk, the president and defence chiefs
meet and close doors to review their beliefs
Before the clock could tell hours of the dark
the field has been filled with a faithful spark
From Bonny camp to the tollgate run trucks
whose skin notes read: ‘Awatse’ till the crux
A curfew is from nine marked to breathe life
but troops loom before to greet with a strife
Angry darkness finds the cold camp sooner
The sky filled with fear and faith holds lunar
Rites are made to keep the flag and anthem
The drive etched here, I might never fathom
Now throng in the uniformed and armoured
who are with smooth massacre enamoured
Through either way of the site, they emerge
but bar both along which fleeing may surge
This time, the anthem rings over the clouds
As flags fly, every mind more life enshrouds
Yet, the cold camp wish to tell its safe mind
No sojourner stirs harm or thoughts unkind
No spite is held or urged athwart the armed
but their mien has this field already harmed
Each life stands on their knees or belly now
with or no yielding limbs and a bowed brow
At once, irked shafts into the camp explode
Quirky beasts are on the armless bestowed
Spewing muzzles yawn closely at the camp
No hint led them nor will do their rise cramp
The air may lay crimes for keeping this field
that earns him bullets some avengers wield
The young re-address every ticking thought
They please to ease the land, or fall and not
These new lives are ended while they settle
bearing their own flag and song with mettle
Bullets cast past human anthems and flags
to have of all: blood-ordained martyred rags
Praying for her whilst her weapons tear you,
none is more love for this soil and hell’s due
A few feet cannot speed past the fell shafts
Sad brows rise to lead their recording crafts
The army rob the sore camp of ceased lives
so that the asking eye or tongue not thrives
They scuttle to shear the site of stray shells
but more are lost to the hands bearing bells
This report has reached beyond ears apace
through the honest arms of the cyberspace
Mobile field clinics speeding in are crossed
by these troops who not do their ill exhaust
From six-forty-five, and more than one hour,
smashed is the camp that could only cower
Telling their bile suited, they wake all lamps
and head for the casualties soonest camps
Doctors who will write no bills tell nearness
to whom could gasp to a fast health caress
The SARS hold sway, forty-six minutes next
past the soldiers, in a field grown perplexed
A mosque, last Friday; a church in two days
Two days next, the tollgate lays a fell phase
This protest grieves the end of honest lives
Now, the cure for this ill is that none thrives
This serves a nudge to sleepy driven hearts
who live to flee this soil for else world parts
The cold year is from this field stirred again
The world rise to their feet, to this vile reign
When many a crowned hearth here rejoices
rueful words are fetched of far-flung voices
A wake throughout the land and away trails
It is the worst night to know the home tales
No home paper or screen reports this news
for hours, till we are caught in foreign views
The native press watch well to evade truths
that may disgrace the land about its youths
Press homes stick to reinventing all scenes
in that the government please, by all means
Such a fruitless zone for the growth of each
How drained for the media and free speech!
Early dawn, the state’s first tells his posture
that mimics a heart borne without moisture
He counters learning of the last night’s woe
and faults certain forces none will yet know
Dawn resumes our home theatres of drama
where sick clowns perform and belie karma
The governor shoos the fell news that rings
and the eve’s recorded spots bearing wings
The army gag claims that they led the crime
The godfathers say that they wear no grime
These captains fail this sail, and the landfall
How promptly to drown the ship always tall!
Soon, the army own that they joined the eve
as the state’s first asked but let it not grieve
Next, the army think they did the camp hunt
but only fired blanks, from the all-eyed front
The armed title the night’s clips on the wing
written scenes that of the Lekki’s night sing
How soldiers of blank bullets thwart a team
en route to the corps morgue is fey a theme
Martial heads mark shell casings at the site,
sisters with the army’s which truths not cite
Ballistics stars mark the shell casings’ build
bearers of live fires, and not blanks as billed
No homegrown countenance cries disbelief
but more hearts lie overthrown by new grief
These men bear lies from the stone-age era
to meet these progressed years of the naira
They would have all like one does kids tutor
were this age not graced with the computer
They might have shorn minds of all acumen
and dwelt, strove and slept amid the human
Will the internet, cameras and smartphones
that kept fit not lay our notes in fond tones?
Facebook that suited the EndSARS crusade
should tell why the sad night struck it afraid
Quickly, Mark’s net halted catching all notes
that lay the grief to put frogs in their throats
Facebook holds: to the SARS virus attached
an effort which is, by tall platforms, hatched
Homes that saw videos of their killed young
yet ask wards what lies of their own ill-flung
More abodes have yet to embrace their own
who went for the eve all hearts still bemoan
Who fight irate young banners and placards
now flee the fiery land and their own guards
Who paid thugs to disrupt the mild protests
now bear the wide land beset by base pests
The bought thugs pull their easy co-vandals
and cast loose on the soil, gloomy scandals
The land stands still; her spirit lays no smile
Markets, as schools, lie low to watch awhile
Cold spirits skip flesh once more, after heat
The wide mood reads to do lands afar greet
All modes of escape from here now feel fair
Thus sad, the journey’s end waits anywhere
As only and shared belongings are wrecked
most souls are, in more melancholy, decked
The sleeping grief of the sixties tells roused
Cold enfolds minds that let the idea housed
The cause turns at heights against the Igbo
whose sweat and blood flow across Oyigbo
Baptised her coup, the wide Igbo burns, still
for the activist-blood the armed groups spill
To bear this rule for ending them you loathe
means to nerve it to do your death unclothe
Well, they, killed, will never have more killing
The next bloodshed knows no life unwilling
Who asks if these killings can do some find
might ask when, for it leaves no-one behind
These heavy days just shed a thing weighty
Bread denied the land is known grown slaty
The monstrous hooligans sent to the youth
raid depots of their chiefs, and break a truth
The bulged bellies who milk the country dry
seized Covid relief bread when most did cry
While the white-collared too join the pursuit
the limbless creep to marked depots of loot
The just charge fails the Lekki-eve shooters
still, the head looters nail their loot’s looters
Ill tales ring, of the bread by now moistened
Our jesters tag their dear loot met poisoned
The chief of the realm has since this tumult
clipped his lips and heart till this next insult
Every heart whose ears for the address itch
now hears it which does any thinking stitch
Who presides at the battled land just spoke
two nights, after his Lekki-night harm broke
No allusions were aimed at the land’s worst
and all voiced grievances labelled unnursed
This rule found, awoke and house terrorists
but arm its soldiers against raised free fists
The martyred Lekki-eve bloods tear up hard
to heed their toil unmatched earn no regard
Whose arms or legs were lost to vile bullets
may lodge staunch patriots, as such pullets
These heads hung over others want not ills
Now, it tells they sow in the soil some chills
TVs who told the EndSARS drive lie flogged
All EndSARS apostles’ savings wail clogged
Home EndSARS reporters tell their last jobs
Eyes that saw flee seizure; others sit throbs
Minds are bought to shoo their testimonies
Known voices break from most ceremonies
The carnage eve is in the rule’s closed book
as a page at which wide eyes must not look
If the slaughter is thus shushed by this rule
his notes on the war should sway but a fool
God from afar did ignite those young minds
They bore eyes which no devilry now blinds
Once more, an age prays to be remembered
Pens lie in the hands of skills dismembered
Nobody has their dreams farther from facts
The trip the dark in the closed eyes retracts
The glee in a dream penetrates closed eyes
Over shut eyes fly shivers dreams comprise
So, flag wavers that yet sing the home song
light their candles in faith yet told so strong
The young anthem is the martyrs’ first cries
Any shared home song will be, in that guise
Those souls will long sway this soil ill-fated
but their blood can purge here for all waited
They breathe in plenty places they not went
They will long live in hearts that well lament
They whose last word was: peace and unity
should spur the knights of their community
All whose last oath was, for their soil, a plea
should greet natives who never bent a knee
