Uche Ogbuji Manna and the Maxim Gun
It rains right down, ambrosia—
The desert sprawls wide miles around.
They rain right down, the shells, the shells—
Mud spatters; thatch floats to the ground.There's mayhem in the marketplace
Yet Lebanese raise IPO;
The trade lines wither in the bush—
Meanwhile the merchants come and go.Herod paid for peace in blood,
Quite careful it was not his own.
The red cap chiefs stack up their wealth,
Shards of what once was bred in bone.Church tales of wandering accursed—
It's forty years full fifty times;
Malaria did scurvy work
Until quinine did work of limes.Armenians, Aborigines,
the martyr's paradise replete.
Sepoys call in for rocket strikes—
Ashanti taste their first defeat.Was Anne Frank Nausicaa returned?
Is odyssey the steady state?
Okigbo's ant-hills prove
How hard are colonies to regulate.Is yellow cake Uranium
Hot manna mix dissolved in oil?
Is Zion in my nation's yield
From seed of years on foreign soil?
Notes:
Christopher Okigbo was one of Nigeria's greatest poets, killed in action during the Biafran war.