Here Once Stood Our Home Poem by John Chizoba Vincent

HERE. ONCE STOOD OUR HOME

I can't forget in a hurry,
Here once stood our ancestral home,
As was told my great- great- great- grand father
Who told my great-great-grand father,
Who told my great grand father and who
In turn told my grand father who later told
My father and my father told me with tears.
My great-great- great-grand fathers was one
Of the early men of Nkporo who traded directly
With the Europeans on many commodities.

My forefathers traded with them all: the spain
The British, the swedes, the danes, the portuguese,
Hand to hand, guns and gun flints for black crude,
Gold dust, palm oil and even slaves but sad enough they took our homes and lands then gave us sorrows
In return for just mirror.
Here, the industries stood was once our compound,
The shrine was here, where those trucks stood.
The ugba tree was here years ago and there, was
Ndukwe's family house but it had already been pulled down.

Like the cunning child who poke a finger in a mate's eyes only to run off thereafter crying to his mother
To lodge a complaint against the mate, they decieved
Us, two supertitious swords crossed paths, the gun and the Bible!
Superstitious found fertile ground in another mind,
Responsibility needed no longer be faced up to,
Our forefathers could not be blamed on our cause.

The human mind is not like coco nut fruit,
Otherwise, it would always be sliced open first to
Determine the nature of it content before eating.
Our forefathers were intelligent yet, they were sold
By ignorance by the mixture of superstitious swords.
For a community, country, a tribe, still reeling
Under the effects of the blatant rape of her dignity.
The day times robbery of her resources and the callous exploitation of her very being by the race who came holding the Bible in one hand and the Gun in the other hand in a deceptive manner.

Religion brought in by the race who did the raping
And robbing and exploitation in order not to get
Too rational about race thing, have sensibly and safely adopted the cardinal rule of: do not think just act like a foolish goat and sheep who watch not.
But In all, we were taught to protect the family name
Many can go on changing hand to silence the young
Often the poor victims and their families but our
Attitude, defiler can not be changed in a hurry.
It was the image of shattered stone oozing blood,
A stone struck against steel in where once stood our
Ancestral home but bridges now crossed its air
Yet another feast for the vulture in our family compound.

We forgot the pain of missing home which was like thousand tiny string tied a thousand times over ten thousand different places.
God created forgetfulness because of labour pains
But we can't let go of those groans and decelt,
Our slaves brothers and sisters, our lost mind;
Our pains and sorrow, the troubles and agony
Because we aren't heavy with a child but free.
When the seed of a curse finds fertile ground
In a human mind, it spread with the distructive speed
Of a creeping plant and while it does, it nurtures
Superstition, which in turn eat into all reasoning,
Abilities and the capabiliy of facing responsibilities.
Civilization had made us naked and voiceless.

(C) Prestigeous JCV. Pls criticise