The Forgotten Casualties of War: Igbobo-Robert

Like a rumbling thunder let loose upon a recalcitrant world
by the fury of nature, the sound of heavy gun shots could
be heard ominously in the distance, from this remote settlement
where the inhabitants lurks away in the gloomy recluse
Of their thatched houses, not daring to venture into the city;
apprehensive that the liberators were in a firefight

Then like a swarm of bees, buzzing and descending upon
grassland, the silence was broken as the liberator swamp
upon this solitary settlement, hot on the heels of the enemies;
those have breached their barriers on the battlefield and have
scattered into the hinterland: even to this desolate hamlet
Things were never the same again from this day in their psychic

For decades he had sojourned here; a friend to all, old and young
Yet in one fell swoop of an epileptic mental dis-functioning, he’d
turned a foe; just that brief moment when reasoning departs the
mind of men, being robed in this fiendish attire of warfare:
Igbobo-Robert was a casualty of war-ish spell insanity
In him, they saw a symbol of the fleeing enemy

Enemies created by man’s reluctance to share in the
universal law of love, or rather shared treacherously
In his moment of seeking true friendship, the old men
turned their eyes away from him, the women
covered their faces with their hand, the children
stared blankly, unable to fathom the rationale of
this horrific display of a man, whom just a moment ago,
was a friend to all.

Our land is again being covered with an ominous
cloud as the same old animosity, sailing across
the Skyline, threatening to burst into ethnic and
religious doldrums, with a potency to consume all
The thunder has not started rumbling, but the
clouds are dark and heavy with no gale in sight
that can blow them away

The younger generation, in their ignorance
are bleating for blood; whose blood they’ve not
pondered about, while the older generation
are gnashing their teeth retrospectively, but
lost in the lust of their vanity, they pretend all is well

For there is none to whom it is well;
the clouds are thicker and heavier
than ever seen