Tamping Warriors Poem by Michael Olajubu

The stanch snow-slides of visages of my countrymen
Slice the minuscule might within me;
They are broken and beaten and blue
In the squelch stasis that ties the nation to a tree

Of despondency. All homage to despotic powers at the rooftop
Kindling the desiccation of dreams
Beneath martyred demeanour of a people
Stamping on grueling grounds like streams

Disowned from their fountain.
Come have a dekko at poverty
Swathe souls in a state of deshabille;
My people perish for lack of property.

Hear their defeated vitriolic silence
In the agony of hunger
For sanctity, for audience; to be heard
That their hearts can endure woes no longer.

They are blue and beaten and broken
But beneath their gruff exteriors,
My people know love, they know hope and have guts
And will somehow survive. But alack, they are tamping warriors

Shackled by the mighty arms of deism.
Come have a dekko; revolution wobbles in the womb
And soon the defeated vitriolic silence of a people
Will lay to rest all despotic powers in a tatty tomb.