THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH by James Lisandro

Unspoken Truth

Call him meagre
But I have seen a man eat soaked garri with bitter leaves
Call her promiscuous
But I have seen a beautiful girl flirt with occult strangers
Call them yahoo merchants
But I have seen young boys get rich quick
Call them old bastards
But I have seen elderly men plan a political rig
The innocent is pulled into a pool of sin
The righteous is polluted by the evil man’s felony

Nothing is impossible
Whether good or bad
Both has a best of its kind

And fools are everywhere
But wise men are scarce and quiet
You never know them until they speak
Robbers have become righteous men
They pay tithes of all their loots
Witches have become popular saints
They gather to wail for the nation
Nincompoops have become intelligent men
They advise leaders in their private quarters

I have heard of it
But I am yet to see a man die for justice
We all want to see grey hairs fall off our coward heads

It may have happened in my absence
But I am yet to see a beauty wed a pauper
They all want an affiliation with a moneyed family

History has it that
A man once ruled a nation from inside an ambulance
He supposedly sent orders while in the state of comma
And his woman did well, keeping the constitution away from everyone’s reach
Until her husband gave up the ghost
Letting go of his hold unto the presidential crown

Yet, we claim to have done all we can
We boast of how things used to be and tell wonderful tales that bore our children
Our memory cannot relate the present pictures with the past glories

We complain from the comfort of our beds
We make noise like inexperienced pregnancy bearers
Being scolded by novice melancholic midwives

But for how long shall we sit, playing a broken fiddle?
What else will they do, if our ordinary rights seem wrong to claim?
Who else will tame the youths if we do not tame ourselves?

We cannot call them foolish because we ourselves have been fooled
We cannot call them stupid because we ourselves must be pitied
Lines and light have fallen unto us in crooked places