A Week Apart Poem by Victor Okey Nwatu

It's been seven days gone
Since I left where I called home,
to a land that I really don't know.
Name of the journey, tactical roam.
For it was both planned and impromptu
One that its miss I could/couldn't rue.

But, it was today's three days before;
that, at Owerri, we both met
in a manner that elicited some more.
It was scintillating. My pen I can bet.
I felt what I can't really explain;
Pleasure, pleasure, all pleasure; no pain.

Annoying, back-breaking, boring, appalling;
are the journey's best description in words.
‘cos for rest, my body was longing.
But it was more boring boredom that came;
Ennui that had half a day to itself;
that made my system become ransacked;
that made me far from being my usual self;
even when I made it safely, not being attacked.

At the motor park, people were in troupes;
And fit in, we silently tried to do.
They also bought badly in groups
from sellers that made us targets of directed woo.
But the air could make a ‘good old' tipsy;
for a certain cloud of fear made it tipsy

It's now a week this day;
one week down the lane;
a lot to write and to say,
like the amount drops in rain;
but I would say little, not much.
And if you've a question, don't ask such…

Each day, my sleep is aborted…
in effort to beat the bugle;
so, my luxury is abandoned
as temperature soars like the eagle;
Drills before breakfast and dinner;
leaves my muscles protesting;
leaves my body getting thinner;
as I fight the battle of adapting -
to the demands of patriotic service;
being deposited in my soul's crevice.

For now, I would pause
Do ask my poetic pen the real cause.