Submitted By: Robert Egbe

I shouldn't have thought I would see World War III
but they are dead now;
those that saw it with me.
and I can only stand and stare
and ponder my fate
in this land of fear.

I shouldn't have thought we would fight in the war
and murder our own children
their bodies; bloated, rotten eyesores
rested in the deceptive waters of a lagos canal
as they fled the fury of uncontrolled bombs
thundering after them from an ill placed munitions depot

I shouldn't ever have thought, ordinarily,
that 27 meant much more than a mere odd number
even when that day came in January
but a careless army chose to make that day memorable
and the canal took it's thousand
victims of a self imposed arms race.

I should have thought though,
that the dead would be respected in their watery graves
but with the Hausa -Yoruba internecine feuds
in the wake of January 27
corpses are mere numbers that we never tire to count
I should not have thought so.

© Robert Egbe, July 3, 2002