UNCOVERED - Poems by Chika Obi (Published on The Kalahari Review on 23/07/2019)

UNCOVERED
Heavy apparel strapped on skinny bodies,
So onlookers can drop accolades —
Admiration is deserving of good living.
Difficult wife prefers to suspend a piece of an antenna on the roof
Even when there is no running subscription.
Locals kill dozens,
But daily tell foreigners stories of harmless scuffles.

Realities are perpetually covered,
Doom is continuously suppressed.
Shade owners are given smiles of comfort,
While folks die
Under the shivers from the heavy downpour;
Yet claiming to be lovers of nature’s benevolence.

In locker rooms, tyrants suppress the weak,
But in the open, they extend olive branches to them.
All for an image, the unsuspecting must not see.
Accolades are unending,
And the status quo ever abiding.
The unsuspecting is convinced of a blissful domain,
Only when the debilitating reality remains covered.
Until the heavy apparel is removed
And the skinny bodies uncovered,
The nutritionist might see no work to do.
Reality then must be uncovered,
If posterity must raise its thumb at all.

CONFUSED

Ever excelled at the Monopoly game,
That you consider yourself a millionaire?
How do you feel when in all these, reality comes knocking?

Fantasies have been taken for reality,
And fate was discarded for faith.
Cash is spent long before it is earned,
Rented cars are driven as though they were bought,
And the ladies jump in and out.

On the papers,
We read of a steady power supply,
Yet, we burn candlesticks in their numbers daily
Just to make sure
We see ourselves in the dark.
Cars are packed for fear of ditches,
Yet engineers boast of expertise
And posterity hisses at the self-orchestrated folly.

Per capita income is diminishing,
Yet they say the economy is booming.
Basic goods are not affordable,
But all are told of a vanished recession.
Folks were killed in their thousands
Even when they lived in a land of peace.
Same people are for all and against all —
Ninth wonder of the world, you might say.

The status quo they will uphold.
The boat keeps paddling backwards.
Provided the bloody gains are made,
And the ladies were made to think otherwise

CONMEN
Hardworking earners are hurt,
Life-savings are cleared.
They cry their hearts out,
Wondering what magic was done.

Corporations are wrecked,
The pool of funds was drained dry.
Think-tanks are outsmarted,
And the witty is left flabbergasted.

But somewhere and somehow,
Luxury-drunk fellows defy the night.
With their electronic devices booted,
They scout the internet like some greedy mice.

Dating sites are explored,
Lonely and unsuspecting fellows are targeted.
They surrendered all for love,
But they are soon brought to wreck.

They steal identities,
Of those poor Navy Seals
On national assignment —
All for the practice of their stock-in-trade.

This is prohibited by the law,
Yet their parcels are conveyed
By professionals under the law,
And one struggles to see any trace.

Their day of doom only comes
When agreements are poorly articulated,
Or with a hasty fellow on board —
Otherwise, cash is thrown all around.