Those Who Never Begun Poem by Ikechukwu Ogbuike

Deep in the forest of Africa
Where mosquitoes chant a mantra of death
A gong
Strikes a stringent melody for those who are among
Those who belong
To the throng
Of ritualists
Who claim they are realists
Sent to emancipate the people
Mournful notes of shame that expose how fickle power
Gets sour
Heard only from the end of a one sided gong.

A virgins scream
Goes unseen
Eyes dilated in fright
For a sacrifice
That is not for life
Even though sedated and bound
With twines that surround
Has cognition to know death
Awaits before the passage of the night fest
For an oblation
To a god of perdition
Recognizes no noise
Especially from someone who has no voice
Now in the custody of the one sided gong.

We cry without our tongues
Our speech is heard only in monologues
How does the world help?
Sound from the mouth of a beaten whelp
Does it have the connotations of pity?
Or the starkness of living in a gagged city
When we look for justice
Should it be in the land of mystics?
If we speak a language
That is not of this age
If we live in parboiled agony
That does not have a symphony
It tells a tale of reason that was denied for too long
Our very dreams are still beholden to the putrid essence of the one sided gong
Whose face is always hidden
Inside of truths forbidden
Coated as it were in white paints
That refuse to peal away even with the rains of pains

They all have their eyes on the cake
Prepared with the condiments of a stolen mandate
The music they play
Reminds those who are coming of the hell to pay
IMF
Is not about what if
It is simply a gelded tomorrow
Which grows only for an instant before becoming a sorrow

They were all selected
And not elected
Douched in pomposity
Lacking in veracity and credibility
Demons who are now crazy
Atop of black gold that has made them cozy
They have got state power as their armor
And absent humility that does not recognize honor
We know them for what they represent
A one sided gong that makes a melody that is bent

We don't dance to this music
From an understanding of the lyrics
There is something untidy about clapping with one hand
Or truth that is spoken with eyes on the ground
But still we dance
A merry go round of people in a trance
When they ascend the hill
Their only purpose is to steal
Our future
Our culture
Our reason
For being
Pathological criminals do not have a motive
Neither do they recognize the honor that exists in the world of the fugitive
Thieving for the present what rightly belongs to the future
Wasted wealth that does not add a span of value to fostered culture

They are all collective answers
To a question not yet asked
Holding meetings at night
For fear of being unmasked
They style themselves our liberator
And refuse to open up their eyes to how things are done the other side of the equator
Now we can only wonder
At their plunder
Desecrating virgins
Only to adorn them with satins
They expect innocence once betrayed
To remain starry eyed and the same
In their hallowed chambers
They look what they are, vultures
Sinfully aligned in their cultures
They don't see what we see
They don't feel what we feel
Playing their one sided gong
Thinking we are among those who belong…
We are the ones
Who never begun.