 Ngozi Olivia Osuoha is a young Nigerian poet/ writer and a graduate of Estate Management. She has some experience in banking and broadcasting. She has published some works abroad in some foreign magazines in Ghana, Liberia, India and Canada, among others. She enjoys writing.
IF YOU WERE A PENSIONER If you were a pensioner Would you prefer the past: The days your children went to school hungry The weeks they walked miles on feet In old raggy uniforms, The years they dropped out of school The times they were sent home, The examinations they missed and took all over Because of fees? If you were a pensioner Would you sign off your arrears? If you were a pensioner Would you praise the past: Those months salaries were unpaid, delayed When you borrowed all from all When your enthusiasm almost cost your life, If you were a pensioner Would you sign off your arrears? If you were a pensioner Would you rather not be at peace, Would you not have been at rest, Would you not have utilized your gratuities, Would you have signed off your arrears? If you were a pensioner Would you have fallen sick without money and care? If you were a pensioner Would you have worshipped the powers that be Or adored the government that ruined you? If you were a pensioner Would you have cursed the integrity you maintained? Were those years of selfless patriotism regrettable? If you were a pensioner Was trusting your fatherland a nightmarish betrayal? Would you have signed off your arrears? CONQUERED AND DEFEATED Swords of vengeance in humming caskets Fanning their blades of death, Vultures and serpents Punching their adversities, Monsters and mermaids Pounding their adversaries. Cohorts of witches in their covens Bees of bondage in huge romance Advancing troops of lust Shuffling legions of hate, Galleries of passion, clustering Bands of zeal thundering, begin! Home of skulls, caves of skeletons Mission for peace, mission in pieces Fathers of agony, seeds of disharmony Brothers of rage, battles of siege Defeated in victory, victory for defeat Conquered and vanquished, victor unhappy. CUP OF BITTERNESS In the frailty of our frame Hides the vanity of our fame, And the fogs that freeze our freedom Instead of saluting our stardom, Yet a feature on the future of our fixture Beyond the sanity and our shame. The muse of the fuse we refuse Bends and sends the echoes we lend Because the fine wine we line At the edge of the village Stands tall behind the wall of our fall. Though the bitter letters glitter Far from the honey that ruins our money Together they boil and foil and spoil Like the digger that daggers when we gather And steps up the cup of bitterness. So like fishes we frolic Trying to fence our defence Like a flock, we block Wanting to patch and hatch Yet that cup overflows With hate, violence and war.
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