WORLD IN THE BRINK



It was just News flash, nothing to be scared about.

They were just News flash from distant land,

From far away land where the inhabitants were,

Well, that is if they were assumed as people;

Were thought to feel no pain or to be pitied.



They sounded like distant talking drums.

Talking to the ancestors of some fallen lands;

They were like the eerie sound of the igila (Gong)

Or the ikirigo (Talking drum) mourning a departed soul

Dim, dim, dim, it seemed to sound from the distant,

Gradually brought closer home by the wind.



So were the tales, heard these days from faraway lands.

News flash of wars and deaths in distant lands

So far from any human dwelling, it seems.

But the sounds are eerily getting closer.

Live news showing the bombings and shootings,

First in distant land, brought home on the air waves.



Homes becoming desolate and cities in ruins,

And like wild fire in the Hamattan season,

Blown across the Savannah, images were shown.

Battered faces and malnutrition beings,

First seen in the air waves are now seen

In every border and national frontiers.



It is no more news heard on News flash,

It is the News seen on eye witness account.

It is not a tale from distant lands,

It is eye witness account witnessed by all.

Our world is heading into a precipice of

Human crises on account of fading life value.



Yet the world rulers, barricaded in the

Opulence of luxurious greed spins away,

As men in chessboard, the lives of youthful

Generation to keep a stranglehold on power;

Lost to the reality of the emerging catastrophe

While the rest of the world watches on petrified.



And so violence has crept into every home.

There is desolation in every city and hamlet,

While the world swaying in a stupor into

Another precipice of humanitarian cauldron;

Should we pretend all is well with us?

Should we look the other way, saying, it’s their case?



Let us rise up our pen and weep for mankind.

The dripping ink for tears let loose on paper

As tears flowing down the cheek of mothers

Weeping for their husbands and children lost

And killed of which cause, they know not,

And children orphaned made for dead parents.



When will it end; how will it end?

Life has lost the essence of living.

Who will roll us back from the brink?

Who will stretch their hands over the divide?

To embrace and to say it’s over

With an olive branch, doth peace prevail.