How Lucky Are The Dead Poem by Oluwatosin Richard Shiba Aribo

Do they receive cold
Flowers in their moist moments?
And do they wander through death
As they did in life?
If the view of the open skies has not been snatched
And their hearts are not frozen in those hours that mattered'
if their spirits are not lacerated with
Fragments from an imploded republic,
If they do not see life through
Rusted bars'
If their knees have not buckled'
From the weight of the terrible
Whispers
If their memories are not brimming,
with pictures of the
Entwined bodies,
And their despair not rewound every
Palpitating dawn,
Every palpable dusk
If they cannot smell or see the odious' snout
Fastened unmercifully to the polity,
If they are not 'luckless'
If all their hours are not cold and damp,
If they do not have to relive the
Brutal, mortal betrayals,
If they are not pinned on all sides by
Shadows, by angry twigs,
by incensed airs, bitter thorns,
Twisted horns, drunken hoofs,
Crab claws'
Crocodile jaws'
How lucky are the dead
Oluwatosin Aribo(2010)
Shiba[c]