God, Government, Gun
Adjekawen A. Jeremiah 1998 (Delta State, Nigeria)
‘God’
Where are the white-collared oracles
Who interprets a thunder the voice of heaven
And a lightning a sign from God?
How long will you keep telling our fathers: ‘it is well’
While their pockets you have welled
‘Be heal’ you say, yet I’m ill
Prayer is a lock
Money is the key
Breakthrough is a must
This ‘miracle a business’, so lucrative
‘Heaven airline’ you operate for a fee
Hundred a million offering for a ticket
It must be a forty-days and forty-nights trip.
Ridding on the back of the green and white-colored wild pet
Hailing our masters in their conquest
Our rulers wiggles to their tune in turns
Ignorant that the music they dance
Is made from their own horns
A Jeremiahic prediction is enough to extract a tithe,
A soothsaying is enough to convince the desperate
Sensor the dial half-truth to cast!
Silent the brave who dare to ask!
‘Government’
Where are the gods of Olympus,
Our messiahs that never arrives,
Who savage our salvage every four a year?
How long shall we your oppression bear?
The blood that irrigates the veins of our land
You connived with the white-skinned leopards to divert,
Giving life to your hollow rocks
At the expense of the oil which greases our grinding mills.
Our waters,
Engulfed with streaks of beautifully insidious colours
Our children,
Drinks from the same water into which they empty their bowels
But our ‘saviours’,
Cruises their private pets in the sky, so high
As though to visit God without having to die.
The lions of the south are captured!
Caged and plagued by a flu, gerrymander
They’d rather pride a meal over a key
Is this the tomorrow you promised our fathers?
Our criminals walk, although they are dead
The dead contests from the dead
The rulers have but pencil to straighten their bends
Ah! Grant the children the mantle of strength.
‘North of the flag is enough for power to spin’
An ‘appointment is enough to gag their voice’
Sensor the dial half-truth to cast!
Silent the brave who dare to ask!
‘Gun’
Where are the combat-boot boys,
Who protects the stolen wealth of our fatherland
In the vaults of the lawful robbers
But steals the little change in the pocket of their brothers.
You sworn to protect our children and their meagre rights.
Bail is free, right?
You bodyguards only the rich and powerful
While the innocent gets injustice in the temple of justice
Ah-ahh! Why won’t a blindfolded sword-lady
Mistake the innocent for the guilty?
When the barrel speaks
Our children sleeps
The world goes silent
When its venom spills
Who is bold enough to break the silence
And not death be issued a licence
Oh! The peace you give us, so quiet
The peace of the graveyard
That lulls our gregarious children to sleep
Resting beneath their own soil in pieces
A gunshot is enough to resolve a peaceful protest
‘Kirikiri’ (prison) is enough to hide the hound’s tail between its legs
Sensor the dial half-truth to cast!
Silent the brave who dare to ask!
About this poem
The poem tactically, unveils the three elements, from the poet’s perspective, which bedevils the Nigerian nation and by extension, Africa and the world at large: Religion, bad and oppressive government and, the uncultured deployment of weaponry, the armed forces and the police. The judiciary is now a tool in the hands of politicians. And even the media that is supposedly, the mouth pieces of the people, now feeds them with diluted truth. The minorities are oppressed my the majority; what is more? They are even disappointed and betrayed by their very own representatives in government . The common man is bereft of hope. more »
Written on June 07, 2022
Submitted by jerrylov322 on June 12, 2022
Modified by jerrylov322 on July 12, 2022
- 2:46 min read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | abcaxa xxdx xdex xfxxx xxGH ijxxx kxxl mbcbbnn xxdm ooxx xxGH cxkmm xxxjdd xxilpp exxx fxGH |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,984 |
Words | 554 |
Stanzas | 16 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 7, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 4, 4 |
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"God, Government, Gun" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/129813/god,-government,-gun>.
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