To Papa: 12 Stanzas With Three Lines Poem by Ekwueme Kelechi

Daddy, thank you for making us blacks
Thank you for black is not lack
Neither does it depict a crack

Thank you for it's an identity of dignity
A show of your magnanimity
And a symbol of nobility

Respect! For your heart to bear the slag
Because ours at times lag
Even though we try to wag

I appreciate you on behalf of those eyes that yearn to make our skins sag
Those hearts that were perfected to nag
I know they will abhor a tag

Please even if they jag
Show them we're above a hag
And put them behind our innate bag

Papa, December is at the corner
Help people not to dance one corner
Because ndi gaga bu dada are confused at a corner

With chilled Heinekens waving at various corners
Their faces as mourners
They mutter their words as fans of gunners

Bless those sects that are waiting to hurt my peers
Gift those that are already on the process
Bless them with justice and gift them with revenge

Keep us in every -ember
For we're your ember
Which the universe must remember

Acquit all of their crimes
Esp our brothers who are sun
And those that are like the moon

Bountifully breast all's wicked kind part with an embrace
Enrace on them your grace
So that the end of this race will not reward us with a smiling lace

But with a shy smiling lace
Grant me a nice posterity
With your ability

A
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*Papa- - an Igbo word used to address a father.
*ndi- - an Igbo word for people.
Bu dada- - carrying dreadlocks.

(c)EKWUEME KC