S.A. David's Blog, page 7

BABY-MAKING MACHINE by S. A. David

In times past they have suffered humiliation
In centuries ago, dehumanization
Their gods subjected them to suffering
Turned them into objects of punching

Deprived of the normal life
Their windows cut with a knife
At ten sold out to slavery
To satisfy the lust of the gods of savagery

They were lesser bodies
Punched by the great bodies
Limited to the chimney and kitchen
Seen by the gods as minute chickens

Bought with some silly price
Bought as a baby-making machine
Lesser babies given out for a price of sacrifice
To continue the cycle of the previous machine

Franchise denied
Freewill confiscated
Provision seized
High-life snatched

They drink the liquid cancer of their god’s corpse
Their pride is shaved from their head
And sleep for centuries with the dead
And their purse is coveted by force

In the name of tradition
Denied the treasure of education
In the name of the ancestor’s culture
Drastically ruined in the future

Yet these same lesser bodies
Have suddenly stretched out hands to the Deities
No longer limited to the kitchen
Neither are they baby-making machines

Queen Idia fought the Idah
Queen Amina, a Zarian elder
Queen Nzinga, one in a million
Queen Neferiti, a woman lion

Ms Sarah Akpojotor, a living legend
Ms Abimbola Akinbode, a holy friend
Mother Teresa, Ms Akunyili, a canonization
Oprah Winfrey, a beatification

Mary Slessor, made huge impact
Whitney Houston, a diva by fact
Mrs. Success, a blessed berry
Bless you Dorothy Dandridge; Halle Berry

They are not deformed men but unique sex
They are not weaker sex
They are not baby-making machines
They are life-giving sapiens, not machines

S. A. David: Nigeria’s Juicy Fruits

Parents listen to your children (kpa kpa kpa). We are the leaders of tomorrow (Kpa kpa kpa). Try to pay our school fees (kpa kpa kpa). And give us the best education (Kpa kpa kpa).

The italicized opening paragraph relays the lines of a nursery rhyme. Those who did not bypass the elementary phase of education sure have the rhyme imprinted on their hearts like the stars seem to be imprinted on the firmament.

However, the nursery rhyme did not accomplish its aim: Its aim was to ensure that parents- not just biological or foster but those in authorities- allowed their children to lead their lives when the time was right.

Our leaders are our parents because they chart a course for the led who are their children. They are supposed to be good husband-men who ensure that ripe fruits are plucked and their juice extracted and utilized, or preserved for a needful time. But in the case of our dear country, Nigeria, the youths are trees with enough sap; their fruits growing ripe, then over-ripe, and then drops to the ground where they are left to decay. Sad indeed!

Sad because the people whom the youth are relying upon to salvage their lot and then step down for them (the youth) to contribute their own quota to nation-building have become the ‘very problem’. (Do the youth really have anything to contribute?) No wonder they (the grandfathers) are [sin]ators instead of senators and representa[thieves] instead of representatives; no wonder ‘the grandfathers’ sit on the throne and keep telling the youths whose fathers have died, “you are tomorrow’s leaders”

The nursery rhyme was composed decades ago, and is still being sung. When will it transcend the realm of the nursery rhyme? Will it ever be their turn? Their turn to lead? Will the grandfathers pluck the juicy fruits for utilization? Or will they continue to let these promising fruits,  fine grapes to decay and then give off their foul smell which would be enough to create a new deadly epidemic for all?

Nigeria’s Juicy Fruits

Parents listen to your children (kpa kpa kpa). We are the leaders of tomorrow (Kpa kpa kpa). Try to pay our school fees (kpa kpa kpa). And give us the best education (Kpa kpa kpa).

The italicized opening paragraph relays the lines of a nursery rhyme. Those who did not bypass the elementary phase of education sure have the rhyme imprinted on their hearts like the stars seem to be imprinted on the firmament.

However, the nursery rhyme did not accomplish its aim: Its aim was to ensure that parents- not just biological or foster but those in authorities- allowed their children to lead their lives when the time was right.

Our leaders are our parents because they chart a course for the led who are their children. They are supposed to be good husband-men who ensure that ripe fruits are plucked and their juice extracted and utilized, or preserved for a needful time. But in the case of our dear country, Nigeria, the youths are trees with enough sap; their fruits growing ripe, then over-ripe, and then drops to the ground where they are left to decay. Sad indeed!

Sad because the people whom the youth are relying upon to salvage their lot and then step down for them (the youth) to contribute their own quota to nation-building have become the ‘very problem’. (Do the youth really have anything to contribute?) No wonder they (the grandfathers) are [sin]ators instead of senators and representa[thieves] instead of representatives; no wonder ‘the grandfathers’ sit on the throne and keep telling the youths whose fathers have died, “you are tomorrow’s leaders”

The nursery rhyme was composed decades ago, and is still being sung. When will it transcend the realm of the nursery rhyme? Will it ever be their turn? Their turn to lead? Will the grandfathers pluck the juicy fruits for utilization? Or will they continue to let these promising fruits,  fine grapes to decay and then give off their foul smell which would be enough to create a new deadly epidemic for all?

Blessed are the Poor By S. A. David

Blessed to live below breadline
Blessed to be at the bottom
Blessed to be a beggar
Blessed to be below the breadline

The high and mighty ride on them
They scoop spittle on them
Poverty is a curse
Prosperity is privilege

More than half of the population
Is blessed with the blessedness
The blessedness of seeing heaven
The blessedness of the blessing

Why live in earthly mansions?
Why buy all the pent houses?
Why belong to the big shots' class?
When being rich is cursedness

Blessed are the poor
Cursed are the rich
They shall see heaven
They shall see hell

Why live in million dollar mansions
When you shall burn in furnaces?
Why eat in the cuisine of cuisines
When you shall starve for eternity?

They live below the breadline
And them live above the pizza line
They eat dust
But them live to eat

Blessed are the beggars
Blessed be the destitute
Blessed are the poor
God is their father.

Chimamanda Adichie: "Community and Consensus: My hope for Anambra"

Ndi Anambra na ndi obia, ekenekwa m unu.
Good afternoon.
I feel greatly honored to be here today. I want to thank our governor, Chief Willie Obiano, for inviting me. As we mark the first one hundred days of his term, I would like to commend him for his vision and ambition in the areas of education, health and agriculture. And particularly security.
Most of us know how, for a long time, Onitsha has been a security nightmare. If you are travelling, you do NOT want to be in Upper Iweka after 6 PM because of the fear of armed robbers. But today, because of our new governor’s initiative, people in Onitsha no longer live in fear. True freedom is to be able to live without fear. A relative told me that you can drop your mobile phone on the ground in Upper Iweka and come back hours later and still see it there, which was NOT the case in the past. And which is one of the best ways to measure leadership – by the testimony of the ordinary people. My sincere hope is that, under the leadership of Governor Obiano, Anambra state will continue its journey of progress with strides that are wide and firm and sure.
I am from Abba, in Njikoka LGA. My mother is from Umunnachi in Dunukofia LGA. I grew up in Nsukka, in Enugu State, a town that remains deeply important to me, but Abba and Umunnachi were equally important to me. My childhood was filled with visits. To see my grandmother, to spend Christmas and Easter, to visit relatives. I know the stories of my great grandfather and of his father, I know where my great grandmother’s house was built, I know where our ancestral lands are.
Abum nwa afo Umunnachi, nwa afo Abba, nwa afo Anambra.
I am proud of Anambra State. And if our sisters and brothers who are not from Anambra will excuse my unreasonable chauvinism, I have always found Igbo as spoken by ndi Anambra to be the most elegant form of Igbo.
Anambra State has much to be proud of. This is a state that produced that political and cultural colossus Nnamdi Azikiwe. This is a state that produced the mathematics genius Professor James Ezeilo. This is a state that produced Dora Nkem Akunyili, a woman who saved the lives of so many Nigerians by demonstrating dedicated leadership as the Director General of NAFDAC. (May her soul continue to rest in peace)
This is a state that produced Nigeria’s first professor of Statistics, Professor James Adichie, a man I also happen to call daddy. This is a state that produced the first woman to be registrar of Nigeria’s premiere university, UNN, Mrs Grace Adichie, a woman I also happen to call Mummy.
This is a state that has produced great writers. If Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa and Chukwuemeka Ike had not written the books they did, when they did, and how they did, I would perhaps not have had the emotional courage to write my own books. Today I honour them and all the other writers who came before me. I stand respectfully in their shadow. I also stand with great pride in the shadow of so many other daughters and sons of Anambra State.
But the truth is that I have not always been proud of Anambra. I was ashamed when Anambra became a metaphor for poor governance, when our political culture was about malevolent shrines and kidnappings and burnt buildings, when our teachers were forced to become petty traders and our school children stayed at home, when Anambra was in such disarray that one of the world’s greatest storytellers, Chinua Achebe, raised the proverbial alarm by rejecting a national award.
But Anambra rallied. And, for me, that redemption, which is still an ongoing process, is personified in our former governor Peter Obi. I remember the first time I met him years ago, how struck I was, how impressed, that in a country noted for empty ostentation, our former governor travelled so simply and so noiselessly. And perhaps he is proof that you can in fact perform public service in Nigeria without destroying the eardrums of your fellow citizens and without scratching their cars with the whips of your escorts.
I was struck by other things – how he once arrived early to church, because according to him, he tried not to be late – in a society that excuses late coming by public officials – because he wanted young people to see that governors came to church on time. How he visited one of the schools handed over to the missions and gave the school prefect his direct phone number. How Government house here in Awka was often empty of hangers-on, because he had a reputation for what our people call ‘being stingy,’ which in other parts of the world would be called ‘prudently refusing to waste the people’s resources.’
Former governor, Peter Obi, ekenekwa m gi. May the foundation you built stand firm and may our governor Chief Willie Obiano build even more.
Anambra was and is certainly one of the better-governed states in Nigeria. We measure good governance in terms of accountability, security, health, education, jobs, businesses. All of these, of course, are important. But there are other values that are important for a successful society. Two of those in particular are relevant to ndi Anambra and ndi Igbo in general: the values of community and consensus
Most of the recorded history we have about the Igbo – and indeed about many other ethnic groups in Africa – came from foreigners, men and women who did not speak the language, missionaries and anthropologists and colonial government representatives who travelled through Igboland and recorded what they saw and who often had their own particular agendas. Which is to say that while they did useful and fascinating work, we still have to read their writing with a certain degree of scepticism.
However, all the history books written about Igbo people are consistent on certain things. They all noted that Igbo culture had at its heart two ostensibly conflicting qualities: a fierce individualism AND a deeply rooted sense of community.
They all also noted that Igbo people did not have a pan-Igbo authority, that they existed in small republican communities, to which that popular saying Igbo enwe eze – the Igbo have no kings – attests.
Many of these missionaries and anthropologists did not approve of the Igbo political system. Because THEY themselves had come from highly hierarchical societies, they conflated civilization with centralization. Some of them wrote that the Igbo people were not civilized. This was of course wrong. The fact that the Igbo did not have an imperial system of governance did not mean that they were not civilized.
One of the writers summarized the Igbo system as being based on two things: consultation and consensus.
In fact one can argue that it was a much more complex form of organization, this system that I like to call the democracy of free-born males, because it is much easier to issue an order from the top than it is to try and reach a consensus. Professor Adiele Afigbo beautifully describes the political culture of precolonial Igboland when he writes that “AUTHORITY was dispersed between individuals and groups, lineages and non-lineages, women and men, ancestors and gods”
Perhaps it was this diffuse nature of authority that made it difficult for those early travellers to understand the Igbo. Professor Elizabeth Isichei has argued that if we are looking for unifying institutions among the Igbo, then we cannot look to political organization since there was no centralized system. Instead we must look at other areas – social institutions and customs, philosophical and religious values. And language.
And on the subject of language, I would like to tell you a little story.
Some years ago, I met an academic in the US. An Igbo man. He wrote articles about Igbo culture, organized conferences about Igbo history. We had an interesting conversation during which he bemoaned the behavior of Igbo people in America.“Do you see the Chinese children?” He asked me. “They speak Chinese and English. See the Indian kids? They speak English and Bengali. But our children speak only English!”He was very passionate. Then his phone rang and he excused himself and said it was his daughter. He spoke English throughout the call. At the end, I tried to be funny and asked him if his children spoke Igbo with an American accent? He said no.Something in his manner, a certain discomfort, made me ask—do your children speak Igbo?No, he said.But they understand? I asked.He paused.Well, a little, he said. Which I knew meant that they probably did not understand at all.
I was suprised. Not because it was unusual to see an Igbo whose children did not speak Igbo, but because I had imagined that THIS particular man would be an exception, since he wrote and spoke so passionately about Igbo culture. I imagined that he would not be infected with that particular condition of the Igbo – a disregard of their language.
It is not enough to bemoan this phenomenon or to condemn it, we must ask why it is happening, what it means, what it says about us, why it matters and most of all what we must do about it.
This condition is sadly not limited to the diaspora. I once ran into a woman here in Nigeria, an old friend of my family’s, and her little son. I said kedu to the boy.His mother quickly said no, no, no, he doesn’t speak Igbo. He speaks only English.
What struck me was not that the child spoke only English, but that his mother’s voice was filled with pride when she said ‘hei mbakwa, o da-asukwa Igbo.’
She was proud that her child did not speak Igbo.
Why? I asked
Her reply was: Igbo will confuse him. I want him to speak English well.
Later as we talked about her work and her son’s school, she mentioned that he was taking piano and French lessons. And so I asked her, “Won’t French confuse him?” (okwu ka m na-achozikwa!)
The woman’s reason — that two languages would confuse her child — sounds reasonable on the surface. But is it true? It is simply not true. Studies have consistently shown that children have the ability to learn multiple languages and most of all, that knowledge of one language can AID rather than HARM the knowledge of another. But I don’t really need studies. I am my own proof.
I grew up speaking Igbo and English at the same. I consider both of them my first languages and I can assure you that in my almost 37 years on earth, I am yet to be confused by my knowledge of two languages.
My sister, my parents first child, was born in the US, when my father was a doctoral student. My parents made a decision to speak only Igbo to her. They knew she would learn English in school. They were determined that she speak Igbo, since she would not hear Igbo spoken around her in California. And I can assure you that she was NOT confused!
My parents are here/I could not have asked for better parents/Grateful to them for much/for giving me the gift of Igbo
I am richer for it. Sometimes I wish I could speak beautiful Igbo full of proverbs, like my father does, and I wish my Igbo were not as anglicized as it is, but that is the reality of my generation and languages have to evolve by their very nature.
I deeply love both English and Igbo. English is the language of literature for me. But Igbo has a greater emotional weight. It is the enduring link to my past. It is the language in which my great grandmothers sang. Sometimes, when I listen to old people speaking in my hometown Abba, I am full of admiration for the complexity and the effortlessness of their speech. And I am in awe of the culture that produced this poetry, for that is what the Igbo language is when spoken well – it is poetry.
To deprive children of the gift of their language when they are still young enough to learn it easily is an unnecessary loss. We now have grandparents who cannot talk to their grandchildren because there is a hulking, impermeable obstacle between them called language. Even when the grandparents speak English, there is often an awkwardness in their conversations with their grandchildren, because they do not have the luxury of slipping back to Igbo when they need to, because they are navigating unfamiliar spaces, because their grandchildren become virtual strangers with whom they speak in stilted prose. The loss is made worse by imagining what could have been, the stories that could have been told, the wisdom that might have been passed down, and most of all, the subtle and grounding sense of identity that could have been imparted on the grandchildren.
Some things can’t be translated. My wonderful British-born niece Kamsiyonna once heard me say, in response to something: O di egwu.She asked me: What does it mean Aunty?And I was not sure how to translate it. To translate it literally would be to lose something.
One of the wonderful things about language, any language, is that it gives you a new set of lenses with which to look at he world. Which is why languages sometimes borrow from one another – we use the French au fait and savoir faire in English — because communication is not about mere words but about worldviews, and worldviews are impossible to translate.
Some people argue that language is what makes culture. I disagree. I believe identity is much more complex, that identity is a sensibility, a way of being, a way of looking at the world. And so there are Igbo people who don’t necessarily speak the language but are no less Igbo than others who do.
But I focus on language because while it is not the only way of transmitting identity, it is the easiest and the most wholesome.
I’d like to go back to the story of the woman whose son did not spoke Igbo and the pride with which she related this.
The corollary of her pride is shame. Where is this shame from? Why have we, as Ama Ata Aidoo wrote in her novel CHANGES, insisted on speaking about ourselves in the same condescending tone as others have used to speak of us?
There are many Igbo people who say the same thing as the woman with the son. Others may not think that Igbo will confused their children, but they merely think it is not important in our newly globalized world. It is after all a small language spoken only in southeastern Nigeria. Kedu ebe e ji ya eje?
It is indeed true that the world is shrinking. But to live meaningfully in a globalized world does not mean giving up what we are, it means adding to what we are.
And speaking of a globalized world, I remember being very impressed by the effort that the people of Iceland put in preserving their language, Icelandic. Iceland is a tiny country with a population less than that of Igboland. Many people speak English but speaking Icelandic is also very important to them. It is NOT because Icelandic has economic power. Iceland is certainly not the next China.
It is because the people value the language. They know it is a small language that does not have much economic power but they do not say: kedu ebe e ji ya eje?
Because they understand that there are other values that language has beyond the material and the economic. And this I think is key: Value.
To value something is to believe that it matters and to ACT as though it matters.
We don’t seem to have this value. It is one thing to say speaking igbo is important, but it’s another to make a conscious, concerted choice to speak Igbo to our children.
In many respects, to argue for the preservation of a language should be a conservative position, but oddly, in our case, it has become a progressive position.
I should pause here and say that I am not trying to romanticize Igbo culture. I quarrel strongly with a number of things in Igbo culture. I quarrel with the patriarchy that diminishes women. I quarrel with the reactionary arguments that try to silence dissent by invoking culture, by saying that so and so is not our culture as if culture were a static thing that never changes.
Igbo is not perfect, no people have a perfect culture, but there are Igbo values that we can retrieve and renew. The values of community. Of consensus.
In his book about President Yar’Adua’s administration, Segun Adeniyi tells a story about the dark weeks when Nigerians did now know where their president was, and whether he was alive or dead. He writes that Dora Akunyili came to him and said, “Segun ,my conscience will not allow me to continue keeping quiet.”
Her conscience. It seems to me that conscience is rare in Nigerian public life. It should not be, but it is.
Conscience and integrity are central to Igbo culture, and to any culture that has strong communitarian principles. Conscience means that we cannot think only of ourselves, that we think of a greater good, that we remain aware of ourselves as part of a larger whole.
Some years ago, my cousin from Eziowelle told me a story that his grandfather had told him, about ISA ILE, where people in a dispute would go to a god and swear that they had not lied, with the understanding that whoever had lied would die. My cousin said, ‘thank God we no longer do that.’
Have we become, I wondered, a people now overly familiar with falsehood? Are we now allergic to truth? Should we not continue to have a metaphorical isa ile as a guiding principle? Should we not have a society where willfully telling lies that cause harm to others will have real consequences?
The Igbo are famed for their entrepreneurial spirit. But at what point did we decide that we will no longer sell goods and services, but instead sell the safety of our sisters and brothers? How did we come to a place where people no longer sleep in their ancestral homes because they are afraid they will be kidnapped for ransom by their own relatives?
Igboland was once a place where people were concerned about WHERE your money came from. Now that is no longer the case. Now, it matters only that one has money. As for where the money came from, we look away.
In Chinua Achebe’s classic, Things Fall Apart; Unoka consults Agbala about his poor yam harvests.
Every year, he said sadly (to the priestess), ‘before I put any crop in the earth, I sacrifice a cock to Anị, the owner of all land. It is the law of our fathers. I also kill a cock at the shrine of the god of yams. I clear the bush and set fire to it when it is dry. I sow the yams when the first rain has fallen, and stake them when the young tendrils appear. I weed…’
‘Hold your peace!’ screamed the priestess, her voice terrible as it echoed through the dark void. ‘You have offended neither the gods nor your fathers. And when a man is at peace with his gods and his ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.’
So while we, ndi Anambra, till our fertile soil with strength, let us also be sure that we have not offended our fathers or our mothers. Let us retrieve and renew the values that once were ours. The values of conscience and integrity. Of community and consensus.
Let us disagree and agree to disagree but let us do so NOT as separate fractious groups fighting against each other constantly, but as people who ultimately have the same goal: a better community for everyone, a better Anambra State.

Tomorrow’s Come and Gone

Their noses have grown lengthy
From the donkey aeons of inverted truth
Their lips spoke it
The leaders of tomorrow, trite and trite

They won’t be leaders
Destiny says so
Fate endorses it
Chance predestines it

They are followers of now
They are today’s servant
Helping in collecting boxes of ballot
Helping in mortgaging their future

The old are tomorrow’s leaders
The young are today’s servitors
Even when the old, all gone
Every else shall follow and serve

It is better to follow and lead
It is a blessing to serve and follow order
It is better to be thugs to the old
It is blessing to help kill their opponents

Leaders of tomorrow, fiction
Tomorrow has come and gone
You are destined to be servants
Keep blessing them with your votes

Servants are humble
Heaven gives grace to the humble
Leaders are proud
The Finger resists the proud

It is better to befriend bombs
Than become tomorrow’s leader
Tomorrow’s come and gone
Better to lick the leader’s shoes

Tomorrow’s come and gone
Tomorrow is apocrypha
Tomorrow is Ali and Simbi
Tomorrow is Sodom and Gomorrah

Servants have nothing to worry about
Their brains will never be stressed
Better be healthy and be today’s servant
Than read all books and be morrow’s leader

Why wait to be tomorrow’s leader
When one can be today’s slave?
Being a servant is easy
Being a leader needs certificates

Tomorrow would never come
Because today’s leaders have it jailed
Tomorrow will never come


Because tomorrow’s come and gone.

EPISTLE by S. A. David

Category: epitaph

(For Michael Jackson, 1958-2009)

Our love and hate for you was Unbreakable
Because to many of us you were a Heartbreaker
But your gift and stardom were Invincible
Such that Heaven can wait

At your death break of Dawn
I remained so Speechless
I wept: Gone too soon
I saw Blood on the dance floor

Your life and death remain a Thriller
Your absence makes me Cry
Your disappearance to me is Bad
I wanted to Rock with you

Now in your absence, I just can’t stop loving you
My wish: I want you back
To be working Day and night
I want you to be the Man in the mirror

Alas! I weep for a Childhood
I wish you were given One more chance
But this time not with a Dirty Diana
Who is it? You may ask

If you’re given a second chance
You should brace yourself and Give in to me
You should Hold my hands
Because now I don’t care if you’re Black or White

Your childhood was that of the Lost children
Always kept in the studio of privacy
Always threatened by a Lord
But now, You’re not alone, I’m with you

Your absence makes me Remember the time
Every minute, The way you make me feel
When Janet and you made a Scream
Just like a Smooth Criminal

Now I wanna be starting something
Will you be there? I wish
Because whatever happens
I’d be a Stranger in Moscow

To cork the glass
Your Earth song is superb
Perhaps some a time in the future
I’ll appreciate; She’s out of my life

From Billie Jean to Beat it and beyond
Your Human nature was of Butterflies
Never stopping till you get enough
Because your passion was more than 2000 watts

To pop you said:
You are my life
One funny thing; to the Liberian girl,
You said: Don’t walk away

With your Dangerous
You made a stage jam
I wish’d I’d be there
On the stage with you

With your Heal the world
You Rock my world
Letting me know that
We are the world

You let me know something
That stars are always above
Even in the tomb, they are backbitten
By folks, They don’t really care about us

With love and affection
From your brother his good passion
Much love your highness
I doff. Dear King Mike.

Jesus versus Kudirat By S. A. David

She was peaceful before Berlin
She was crime free before Domini
She was a loving people before Kudirat’s man
She was religious before religion

She was savage before Mungo
She was barbaric before Flora
She was uncivilized before Lugard
But she was human

She ate with the five fingers before fork
She treated her pestilence before the syringes
She boomed her economy before the mint
She was lovable before love

Jesus came, they looted in his name
They trafficked in his name
They crusaded in his name
They kissed frenchly in his name

Kudirat’s husband came up
They spilled red fluid in his name
Boko emerged in his name
Infidels were axed

Jesus is infidel
Kudirat’s husband’s people propagate
Jesus people can’t lead
Kudirat’s people are free

Jesus lost the vote
Kudirat we love
Jesus condones nonsense
Kudirat is Ishmael's 'dant

Kudirat lost the vote
Jesus we cherish
Kudirat condones barbarcity
Jesus is Israel's 'dent

Jesus will marry Kudirat
Kudirat might be unfaithful
Kudirat might wage war
Jesus versus Kudirat

Wax and Wax By S. A. David

NEPA waxed and waned and waxed and waned
PHCN boasted, bragged and bought over
A hope of a better performance
A hope of ever-glistening bulbs
A hope of constant-shining lamps
A hope of beautiful-night streets
A hope of hope

But, yes, but, it didn’t kill us
It made us Hercules
It boost the oil boom
More petrol for the generator engines
Pumping plenty paper-mints per purse
Enriching the righteous cabals
They wax and wax

We believe more in the candle-light
They, we, the masses, the common people
The flames make the children see their books
And befriend and kiss their eyes
At old age, they regret
In a small way though

Candle is cheap
It shines brighter than filaments and tungsten
Candle wax is lucrative
The industries wax and wax
Employment opportunities
Not having Faraday's benediction is an opaque benediction

The oil lamp does well
Oil business booms
We don’t need the nuclear plants
To gehenna with the high tension wires
The wires are cancerous
Oil lamp serves better

Darkness is our friend and companion
We’re used to it
Black is fashion
Blindness, not a disease
Just an orientation
In our disguised blessing, we wax and wax.
We need not PHCN, we wax and wax.

Abraham Versus Dharma By S. A. David

Death cogitates:

“The moment the red man
Let the mother of all convince him
I set in
I was activated
I became their punishment, your consequences, your ways

You sought solaces
A hope, comfort, escape route
You think and believe I’ll die
Expire and no longer trouble you
You cook up many cookings

The other accepted me, perhaps
A potent hand that stays
Behind nature, very potent.
Me, you can always cheat, not always

‘We will be given new bodies
We’ve been died for
The Lamb paid the price with red flow
The Baby-Sheep loves us dearly
The Crown raises us and delivers to us eternal temples’

‘Decades ago I was Hitler
Centuries ago I was Shakespeare
Millennia ago I was Moses
Aeons ago I was Adam’

They talk and preach
They sing and inspire
They motion and convince
Reincarnation is good
Resurrection is great.”