POEM TITLED: HOME

 

This is what we get

We know suffering like the back of our palms

We know the smell of death better than our farms

We know war in sick flesh

We know it is in the agonizing screams of mothers and babes

We know it is in the guns of soldiers that ever remain fresh

Home is a divided populace of meaningless greed

Home is pessimism

Our fathers fill their bottomless cups with speed

They keep pouring, cup after cup until their eyes form a prism

This bizarre world do not motivate our mothers to chip in counsel

Our families hang loose on the rope of half-light

We are left to form roots lighter than parcel

We remain buried in the dark, yet they call us children of light

What are roots if they strangle you?

Who are ancestors if all they do is worsen your narrative?

Home at this point is a suspect

Our beautiful eyes fear the world

We shower them with tears to keep them from running away

The fear in our hearts leave the future crooked

And whenever we arrive we begin to mend it till we pass away

Home always arrives late

Most times life cannot solve the problems

It saves it for later

And later is so soon

That now becomes far from sight

When war howls, we run

When hunger jabs, we run

When death comes, we run

Then dark morning skies release vultures that visit, venerate and vacate the lifeless

Home is a wasteland

Dear fathers that sleep with guns but would never hold their children

Legacy will never do your jobs

To our lovely mothers that need support but never have time for their children

The money will never connect the creator

Our names will but are heavy bricks that crush our bones

You will turn our lives into ice cream cones

Home is a worldly purgatory and what we get is silence

Chris-Augunus Anyanwu

©2019