Haunted By Memory [biafra On My Mind] Poem by Olumide Omoyele

Three children play at dawn
budding engineers of sandcastles
a large roar, deafening...
Best-laid plans and aspirations
dispersed into cruel disarray
in a sparkle of loose earth.
Survivors of the initial impact,
they run hurriedly from the
instantly-formed cloud of dust and smoke.

A little boy runs a little less ferociously
headless, he was!
For a moment, possibly two
the slim, lanky body runs on
in apparent defiance
before collapsing into an inevitable heap -
decapitated
by a random, flying shrapnel.

The second is halted by
kwashiorkor several months afterwards.

The third witness, a girl,
survives the war;
Haunted
by the loss of innocence
and by... memory



From the book A PLEA FOR MEMORY
http: //www.amazon.co.uk/A-PLEA-FOR-MEMORY/dp/1491886765/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1386765503&sr=8-1&keywords=a+plea+for+memory