TALE OF MAHAMA - poems by Chika Obi (Published on The Kalahari Review on 28/05/2017)

HANGING WAGES
The smiles are all gone,
Better still, they have become costly —
Such that only those with real wages, can afford them.
The empty pots now make endless noise,
From rats, winning and dining in them.

Daddy came back looking famished,
Mummy wasn’t looking any better either.
The painful story had once again been told —
No hope in sight,
For their hanging wages.

Through their angry pores,
Sweat rushes out, only to later rush back in,
No hope of being greeted with the neatest of handkerchiefs.
From where will that ever be bought?
No one knows.
Yet the dictators swim in oceans of diverse currencies —
And still tell them endless stories,
Of how theirs shall arrive at the scream of Jack.

TALE OF MAHAMA
We never knew soldiers cry —
No one ever told us they wail.
We were only told they seldom smiled.
We thought they were immortals-
Not having blood flowing through their veins.
Lies and lies we believed.
Humans, they are-
Little wonder they exercise,
To keep fit, body and soul.

The exercise, a routine,
A sorrowful twist to the tale of vibrant Mahama.
A few inches away from dusk —
Though not long before it was dawn,
Agile Mahama is set for the field.
A jog round the neighbourhood, a task to which he was diligent.
Just to have body and soul,
Active and resilient.
So that whenever duty calls,
His place, not to be recalled.

In a dutiful soon-to-be general,
Folks saw a miscreant.
Pouncing on perplexed Mahama,
They let hell loose.
To his pleas and biddings —
Their ears went deaf.
“I am innocent!”
He may have screamed countless times.
With increasing intensity,
On him they descended.
Until unfortunate Mahama,
Could no longer offer the faintest words —
Amidst the blisters and blood.
Then life gave him a permanent break

DOOMSDAY
Thick clouds, tightly shielding the rain —
Defying the moments and seasons,
A bad guess for the meteorologists.
Before noon, the day now presents
Its dark side.
In awe, people gazed —
Seeing no hint upon which to place
Their sights.
To the aged, a drastic shift,
To the young, a mere drift.

Mandarin is spoken,
Yet the Chinese and Taiwanese scarcely comprehend.
To the residents of Mombasa,
Swahili is now a strange language to speak.
Adults inclined to lullaby,
For the colostrum, they are willing to kill.
With a baritone, toddlers now scream,
Despising the tone, light and faint.
The base currently speaks for the top,
The rule, no one cares to know.

To find the way,
The compass is dropped.
On the Southern path, it indicates ‘North’
In summer, the snow comes on heavy,
And the tarmac is never free.
Sincerity, now like a twenty-carat round diamond,
With less than a handful,
Having the purchasing power.
Truth is currently reserved for the risk-takers,
Though in the background, the trustworthy still abound.

Individuals with ease,
To smite their likes.
Nations feeding on espionage,
In cruelty coming against nations.
Just as doomsday draws near,
The stench of Armageddon,
Now saturates the entire ambient.
Only a few,
Hear the rolling drums of the end.
With the multitude, scrambling for the little shade.