Drumbeats rolling
Hearts pounding
Feet running helter skelter
The elders in macabre silence
Tell me oh countrymen of mine
Who bewitched you?
Youths chanting war songs
History forgotten of bloody trenches
Of children with protuberant bellies
Eye sockets empty of globes of hopes lost
Vultures as guards of honor
Waiting patiently for the last breath drawn
Tell me oh countrymen of mine
Who bewitched you?
Great men and women lost
In a volley of bullets
Voices silenced never to be heard
Skills, dreams, all gone in a moment
Yet, we continue,
Drowning each other voices in senselessness
When will the cacophony of lies end
Oh countrymen of mine
Who has bewitched you?
The prophets are silent
The future “un-foretold”
Like the elders too
The silence is loudest
Where mothers wail in search of sons
Who will never seat again at the dinner table
The night holds no peace
Bewitched dreams unending and recurring
Tell me oh countrymen of mine
Who gave you poison to swallow?
Even while the eyes shed a tear
Through the mist, yet it sees
But no not for my countrymen
Only the path of disharmony it treads
The end of which is a large abyss
That snakes through a wormhole
Oh countrymen of mine
Who gave you shoes of mischiefs?
Vultures perch in wait
Patience learnt through years of evolution
For how can they feed
If bodies don’t drop
The hungry lions in diaspora must feed
The law of the jungle must prevail
They say it’s a zoo
In cages we live?
Tell me oh countrymen of mine
A peacock in the zoo
Is better off than a partridge in the wild
Tell me oh countrymen of mine
Why can’t we make it OUR zoo ?
No one can claim to love the land
Better than the inhabitants
A time will come, the wild will call
Only echoes in the wind will reply
A flurry of feathers in the skies
As vultures circle in a last minute landing process
Pointers to other animals that the kill is ready
The feast is prepared
As they pick and tear the flesh off the back
Of our kinsmen
Talking with mouthful of flesh
Who bewitched you
Oh countrymen of Nigeria?
©️Doyin Oyenusi
