Waiting For Our Oil Poem by Tony Adah

The oil tanker grumbled in
Loaded with premium motorized spirit
It took a century to offload
The first car's nose sniffed the iron gate
Tanker men, the pumps and sales staff
All prisoners.
Under the sun we waited
Under the threatening sky we waited
Under the tree the season poured confetti
On the wrong people
And the attendants gauged the reservoir
Severally times in grudging deeds
We waited and watched endlessly;
No word for the waiting vultures
Our money in our pockets
And the reservoir idled without turnover
The spirit stealing away slowly.

Will we still call this place
Our own country?
Where the sun burns our foreheads
Where the rain drenches us
Where sweat is our squalid transfusion
To ease the our throats from the scorching sun
Where all those elected to speak
On our behalf have a big bone
In their mouths like a dog
Silence speaks loudly everywhere
We are worst for it
Waiting at the gas station
For motorized spirit in a place
Where every stream runs down
With tributaries of crude oil.