POETRY
Why I Stopped Living in Nigeria
Your plaintiff voices I hear daily
in cold silence that deafens,
in naked and shadowy corners:
“Don’t you know what’s going on?
Have you not heard that…?
Have you not seen with your eyes?”
My senses breathe, oh yes, alive am I
with eyes that see beyond looking
with ears that listen beyond hearing
But my elements for another world are meant now
For I stopped living in Nigeria
And began existing only there.
You never knew
When I put hope in the pockets
of my deep blue jeans, and zipped it up
You looked away
When I began carving my world
within a world of chaos, a world gone mad!
Buried in empty country talks you were
When I gripped my dreams
and in the grave silence of the night
Told my soul I was going to break free
Like the caged canary.
Now I live in a place
That cannot be gutted by fire
That cannot be grazed by killer cows
That cannot be raped by abductors
That cannot be assailed by bandits
That cannot be stained by blood
Oozing from the wounds of protesters,
Where the queen does not leave the beehive!
Now I breathe, an undying soul
inside my beautiful mind,
inside my new, delicate but wild heart
Yes, I am the nightcrawler,
Hunting for game and adventure
Bowlines off, away from safe harbour,
Set to catch trade winds in my sail.
And I have since stopped living,
Only existing in the territory called Nigeria
with my body and senses only, not the rest,
though with cosmic loneliness I sometimes wrest
Until conversations deep and rare lighten me up.
© Samuel James
