Why so blessed, yet so poor?

The Poet's Corner

Why keep mute and fold hands,

In the midst of the hopelessness
as if nothing is wrong?

Why are we so blessed

beyond imagination,

Yet so poor?


Why are we passive,

In the midst of active oppressiveness?


Why seem depraved,

In the midst of so much life around us?


Why live to cherish,

terror, horror, trauma, torment, carnage

genocide, raping, pillaging, stealing

land- grabbing, bloodshed, abductions

as if nothing is wrong with us?


Why the gay?

when it’s never hay,

all the way,

till this day.


Why jungly junta

In civilian facades with their masks

so disguising,

eroding civility, sanity, chastity?


Why seem desperate

Of greed, corruption, power

without humanity in us

In guise of progress?


Why seem to live as dictators?

With songs of unlawfulness,

brutality, killings, shamelessness,

like those of Nilafu herdsmen or Kobo marah terrorists

so disgusting in sights and sounds


Why seem so indifferent?

In poverty stricken hardship,

Of others, as so keep aloof,

It’s such inhumanity!


Ben Ezeohagwu is the 2017 Onigraffiks Prize winner in Literature; Chancellor and Professor of Graphonomy, African American University, Porto-Novo, Republic of Benin.

+234 817 3175 540; benezeohagwu@yahoo.com

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