The Shadow Of Life Poem by Tony Adah

Uptown in Maiduguri, life thins
Into smothering smokes spewed by a volcano
With munitions of death
The townspeople under pressure
Have deserted the town
Ruins have built a new habitation
Of broken walls and thatch less houses
And charred remains of humans and automobiles
Death is worthier than life.
Everyone is gone
Either for refuge or for forever
Survivor casualties wander in statelessness
Looking for a country to claim.
Charred bodies laid like fish finished by oil slicks
In the delta area
And the shadowy figures of massacre
Bear their name as they bear their arms
And stride the land
Death is pronounced and the heart wrenched people
Are shadows in the land where they prowl
From one serfdom to another.