Deaths in the Creeks

Deaths in the Creeks

The green luster mangrove forest
Spreading through the creeks in the hinterland
To the shores of the Atlantic Ocean
The sound of the rolling waves
Have turned ominous and gloomy

The once beautiful creek dotted
With sprawling fishing settlements
With smoke spilling from the thatched roof
Where the fishermen dry the day’s catch
Have all now turned dreary and gloomy

The ever busy water ways, competing for space
Between fishing boats and traders;
Paddling their wooding canoes, bobbing
On the undulating ocean waves have become
A desolate waste of ‘no man’s land’

The children lining the water front in the fishing settlement,
Waving and calling out to the various tugboats, barges, rigs,
Speed boats and their drivers, servicing the oil industry
Are now brooding chicks, peering at the hounding boats
Through worn apertures in their thatched huts

The sound of engines, now cloak in dread upon the fisherman;
He hides his canoe in the shadows of the mangrove trees
The appearance of a speed boat fills the
Children with dread of unknown peril, while the
Traders now hide their wares for fear of been robbed

The once flourishing water cruises
Now fill the natives with dread and woes
The ladies are molested without qualms
As to their gender, under the glaring sights of all
And the men beating up to pulp and disposed of all

The luster mangrove forest have turned grey
The waters of the creeks have turned greasy
The speed boats ferry dreadful looking beings
Wearing bullet belts and weaponry;
The tug boats and barges now ply the route
With dreadful looking soldiers, wedging their arms,
While the kids scampering into the shade of their thatched huts
Their parents are scared and wary to go fishing
And the fishes have scampered to the depth of the sea

There is war in the Niger Delta
There is death in the oily Delta
Death to the trees and the water
Death to the fishes; the lifeline of the people
The blessings of the crude oil wealth to the people
Have turned to a crude bloody death to the people.