collapsed building
The dog may come after you,
because you did not come into her marooned gate.
A very annoying dog fed with
malnourished and undernourished English bone
that underbellies self-hatred that spurs her to bark
when a shadow crosses her caged self. Who’re you
to bark at me for being Igbo my progenitors are?
I have no blood lineage with the names of those
in the preaching book, you water down my throat.
Reason for barking.
I am Igbo. My DNA. My true history. It must be told.
Segregate me for this sake. My true self
can’t be hidden like burning unprofessed love,
like iron meant to strengthen clothes, but water.
This uncouth dog barks at those who
don’t have hassles with her master;
who only want to be like melon that boils itself on fire,
where the Gods and ancestors gained from each other
for the upliftment of my race. Sacred. Lovely. Mystical.
This English legacy has made many undoubtedly insane,
propagating the history hatched in the Middle-East,
and they lost track like a severely hounded bush animal, and
they burnt the books that chronicled their ancestors’ names;
and they lost their origin, their history, wandering in oblivion.
ODIMEGWU ONWUMERE
Sep. 7 2020.