TWO POEMS

By Nkegbe Chukwuemeka Joshua

OUR ERROR

Our error has led us into despondency

It rendered us destitute

Towns ascend in flames

natives slaughtered like fowls

survivals scurry on their heels

because of error

Hunger takes greater toll more than ever

because of error

Confusion hold sway everywhere

Fears domicile in the bowels of people

because of error

Wives widows rise at the blink of the sun

Husbands widowers follow suit

because of error

Children are motherless chicks

Parents are childless mother hens

Relatives…nowhere to be found

because of error

Wretched are we

Our error has fetched us gifts of sorrows

Error is a virus that infiltrates through the genital of a healthy body

and renders the immune system useless

We're the victims…

Our cities at alarm and towns in shambles

Error has given more than we can chew

Democracy is muzzled like a horse 

because of error

Honesty is reeling like a drunk

because of error

Adults are wandering goats; Youths are lazy dogs

Law earns no respect and nepotism is the chief cornerstone

because of error

Error!

You’re our drawn out gleaming sword of defense

Whirled around to face us, shredding our shivering bodies

You’re a horrendous monster.

Saints are criminals and criminals saints

because of error

Beasts have ascended the position of men 

and natives are aliens in their lands

because of error

Error!

You’re our blind decision

You’ve run us afoul

But have we learnt our lessons?

                                                                                  

NATIVES PLIGHT

The goat has delivered in tethers on the naked eyes of the adults. 

The land is running amok, the air is going berserk and flames are scurrying ferociously across the atmospheric cloud.

Hieeeeeeee!…

I can hear the quivering shrieks of the natives reverberating as the shrieks of the victims of hell; they are the effusive bleats of the cattle led to their abattoir in extemporaneousness, and accompanied their excruciating plights and fates in bargain plea. Shrieks begging for help, for salvation but backwards, like the Koala’s pouch, are the faces of their partisan saviors.

Alas! The land is Schweigger's Tortoise inching closer to the boundary lines of Savannah forest. The natives run fiercely like pronghorns to the sullen cities, leaving behind, at the mercy of the marauding desperadoes, their survived inheritances.

The dagger of these desperadoes are belligerent cobras that lurk in the dusk, in silhouettes figures and pugnaciously swooped on the shivering bodies of the adamant natives who stood the test of time.

Alas! The land has fallen captive to the aggressive desperadoes and their beasts; the garden yards of the run-away natives have transformed into pens of the revered beasts, and their surviving houses elicit comforts to the determined matching desperadoes whose agenda flew like a hawk to the sea.

Man is no longer man;

Man has descended to be beast

And beast has ascended to be man.      

                                                                               

Nkegbe Chukwuemeka Joshua is a native of Ogberuru in Orlu province, Nigeria. A young writer who has won some literary awards, including the Certificate of award for his outstanding essay titled "Chinua Achebe, the patriarch of African literature" in the Sixth Chinua Achebe Poetry/Essay Anthology.