Now That We Are Dead

I’M NOT AWARE

Life’s a trick

And the master of trickery lives the fullest

Amidst hunger and famine and want,

He grows robust to the sheer cheer of the lesser fray,

And pays deaf to the hunger cry of the lot in the rot.

When the pungent aroma of the delicious decay

Wafts through his nose’s thrills, he says

I’m not aware!

Chaos is a ladder

Upon its rungs, we tread to the zenith of all power.

The cheerful lack of wisdom of the lesser fray

Is that which we pray to prey,

Letting the world get messy without salvation

And upon the very messiness, we triumph.

For power is all there is to quench the thirst of greed

From which all mankind suffer

And yet we deny

We are not aware!!

Anarchy is good governance.

The cry of the needy, rather music to those on Olympus,

And justice has become a folktale

To which we listen in all awe without hiss

Like tales by moonlight

Singing praise of fake

To the kings unwanted

As we wallow in brain drain of sheer mockery to the very self

Like the extended inconclusive sleep of Nasiru.

They choose to make us what we become

Because they are not aware!!!

MELANCHOLY

A feast of old dogs

Gathered at the table of my father’s inheritance

Like the Savior’s Last Supper

Dripping slime from mouth corners

Of the sizzling, gripping, searing aroma,

Garnished with deathly seasoning

As they devour the carcass

Of my father’s cadaver

Growling at the intent of lustful onlookers

I lust for tears

But my tear glands deny me justice

As saintly intentions go sour

With a viral corruption

Threatening to rip apart the innocence of justice

Tearing the hopes of the lesser fray

Whose hopes are trod upon

As they yearn to join a feast unkind

I shall weep for Umaru’s death

A million and five tears

The day mine eyes assure me luck

Witnessing a sorrowful deconstruction

Of our grandfather’s grave

Even Umaru’s dearest pet, Law

Has been locked in Kirikiri

Without hopes of salvation

Now, our dead fathers’ dreams are so dead

My dearest Sani farts from beyond,

And a minty aroma of Benjamins sears the sphere

Like a catholic saint,

Paying indulgence for the lost souls of earthly hostage

As they march in confusion in the race of rats

With a destination unclear and purgatory lost

Roaming without aim

Like Pitt’s Zombies,

Waiting for a war without end

As their bounty ceaselessly ends at the feastly table

And not beyond

On the last day, we shall all go to prison

But those at the table shall fly to Pluto

The planet of hell and Hades

And mercies of purgatory denied

For a death sentence so fair

On the hate denied

Even speech denied

As we are led on a reluctant journey

Like chained African slaves

Led across the Atlantic

Without utter and mutter

Until our arrival at Doomsdom.

Airegin

BLEEDING FLAG

The frustrating fangs of our funny feeble fathers

Festers the flying flags of our forefathers

As soldierly fingers of a happy battalion

Stings a halcyon clutter of saintly tribesmen

On an errand of glorious meaning

And leaving carcasses of comrades very dear

Yet hope lives as survivors stand

And blood so spilt manures the fertile ground

For the germination of a new generation desired

And what is dead cannot die again

As the souls of fallen comrades rest in peace

But the lives of our tormentors

Rests in pieces

This is how we remember Irahub

And Iatarub his military cousin

For a civil mayhem uncalled

And a fiendish massacre of friendly cries

Leading us against our wishes

Towards Helluva’s main gates in daylight

But gagging our feeble voice even to cry

Yet, history never betrays heroes

Two hundred million bright stars

Dim in a few hundred’spresence

As the lesser fray

Drinks the yard dog’s water for a living

And opulent white Babanrigas

Whistles orders for a point and kill jolly game

To undisciplined soldiers of our hungry day

And now our dear flag drips tears of angry blood

Valar Moghulis!!!

(For the fallen heroes of #EndSARS protests)

NOW THAT WE ARE DEAD

Now that we are dead

Our forefathers have no vacant seats waiting

As we stand stranded

At the crossroads of Hades

With deathly astonishment at nowhere to tread

And no purgatorial promise of intercession

Floating in penury of a headstone

Upon which to lay the heads of ragged souls

But we keep on keeping on

Now that we are almost dead

Looking for a monthly meal of sweet garbage

On a smooth table of sleek papers without pay

With little El, breathing fire

On the tired necks of perished labourers

Ushering criminal declarations of deathly promises

On a sunny day with no sheds of asylum

Roasting the souls of restive beings

For an angry meal to come

Now that we refuse to die

Standing tall in the face of sure demise

As the breeders of death

Stand upon the duty of destructive mercy

Noticing us noticing them noticing us

With a defiant charisma of unrepentant hunger

Churning the bowels of ready-to-die men

Who yet, refuse to die an undeserved death

Of frustrations fervid and callous

As they fight for freedom with arrows of misery

Fired with bows of pain

Without the promise of an unhealthy armistice

Now that we have survived death

Our anguish has become a healthy soul meal

Fermenting an attitude of carefree men

Whose victory resonates a feeling

Of wanting to die but never dying

Feeding on certified papers of uselessness

Having healthy hopes of hopelessness

On a day Lai keeps lying

Of a secure future in nowhere

Until the day is come

When men neither listen to order nor reason

For we have never died before

We cannot start dying now

…ON THE SICK-BED OF DYING LOVE

A shimmering blue shade

Cast upon my lay bed

As I succumbed to a drizzly posh slumber

Enchanted by nothing else

But a swerving grace

Of serpentine slithering

Dancing, like an African succubus

Casting a love spell by middle of night

In the very middle of the silent Atlantic.

Mine eyes opened

But it was no dream of mine.

There and then

Stood a moanful enchantress

Staring blankly at space

Appetite lost of love

But beauty not denied

I yearned for a touch of salvation

But my appetite proves only my damnation.

This beauty so eternal

Begets a million-dollar praise

Adorned with a lavish perfume

Playing mine noses with ravishing tricks

Enthralling my soul with a spell-binding desperation

Been so close, but so distant

Like the neighbourliness of tongue and nose

Whose handshake never achieved

Possession is mine sole desire

But like a misty sphere

She scatters in my grasp

Revealing naught but ash

In mine steadfast hold

Like a fairy tale ended without warning

Now she swerves off

Majestically, gracefully with appetite

In every gait of her tippy toes

Leaving my soul sickened of love

And realization begins to dawn

Of a nightingales beauty unbegotten

The oval face of ebony opal

With eyes blazing blue black yellow

Of a witchy chameleon’s precision

The unforgettable smile that lits all heavenly dwelling,

Like a lightning bolt

Struck across the room

On a dark thunder night

Her slender sleek casement

Sliding to a sudden protuberance

Of thick hippy gourds

Juggling generously from behind the axis

Preceded by a gorgeous Bermuda

Whose evidence from the waistline so charming

So enchanting

As two happy, succulent, turbulent jugs

Heaves on a fine chest so satisfied

Yet, the straight but bowed legs

Strays and leaves me in plight

Ne’er to return

For mine sins unforgiven

As I lay on a slab of loss

Like a decaying lizard

Wasted after a thunderous sex battle

With due brethren

Hoping for hope unhoped for

Like Armageddon come too soon

But salvation denied

With ruthless finality!

Fanan Agyaku is a Theatre artist by profession. He is a research person with interests in Theatre Innovation and Literary Criticism. Agyaku is also a signed writer with Dreame Publishers, Singapore, where he specializes in the genre of paranormal and Sci-Fi fiction. His novels Point of No Return and Returned have been published thereof.

He is an editor, biographer, poet, entrepreneur, and budding politician. Agyaku has contributed chapters and forewords to books; some of which have been published internationally. His collection of poems titled Dead Men Cry Too is currently at the publishers’ due for publication. The man hails from Konshisha Local Government of Benue State, Nigeria, and is married with children.

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