Chinua, I think with you I dare
Be indelicate – we scrape our feet upon
The threshold of mortal proof, denying
The ancestors yet awhile our companionship –
May that day learn patience from afar! –
On the stage at Bard, behind the lectern,
Gazing across time to your staunch spirit
Wedded to a contraption we neither make nor mend
My irreverent thoughts were – There sits the nation,
All faculties intact, but wheelchair bound.
Your lesson of the will, alas, a creative valour
Marks the gulf between you and that land
We claim our own.

II
There are wonders in that land, Chinua
Are you wired? Tuned to images of cyber age?
Severed wrists will soon adorn our walls
And Conrad’s Heart of Darkness be fulfilled.
The cairn of stones is building for the first
Butchery in a public square, a female scapegoat
Tethered for primordial rites that men devise
To keep their womenfolk obedient to the laws of man.

An encampment is on the move, biped
Amorphous tents, a sorcerer invasion choreographed
In castration shrouds, visors no less secretive
Than face-masks, twin to ancestral masquerades
Proclaimed infidel. They slink through streets
And markets – yes, it is our women on the move
Our mothers, wives and sisters, comrades-in-arms
Bereft of limbs and faces, haute couture decreed
By encyclicals of eunuch priests. Features
Mummified by laws of terror. Oh my compatriots,
Shaved bare-skull at initiation, convertites
Dipped body and soul in the waters of salvation
Are yours these zombies of the age, are these
The paracletes of the new millennium?

They’ll murder heritage in its timeless crib,
Decree our, heroes, heroines out of memory
Obliterate the narratives of clans, names
That bind to roots, reach to heavens, our
Links to ancestral presences. The Born-Agains
Are on rampage, born against all that spells
Life and mystery, legend and innovation.
Imprecations rend the air, song is taboo,
The stride of sun-toned limbs racing wind a sin,
Flesh is vile, wine, the gift of earth, execrated.
These tyrants have usurped the will of God.
How did we fail to learn, that guns and boots
Are not essential to a coup d ‘état?