Depression-----(Poems)

I returned to my Squalid Milieu,
(my NEPA deserted apartment)
from a fruitionless day transaction,
like one who has committed crime,
like one who has had banter with sandiness,
like one who has broken the chaplet
in the presence of a fanatic catholic.
.

No wife,
no children,
to tell me,
welcome.

Neigbhours' generating sets
kept on crooning
odious sound
I detest so much.
I felt abandoned
by my fate,
like the wreckage
of abandoned Africa shrine.
I look dead than living,
I virtually read
all the books and newspapers
in my apartment
without fathoming
anything I was reading:
My life was blackened
by depression
of reason
I couldn't comprehend.

I turned a musician
I don't have the voice;
I begin to write poesies
that make me cry;
everything around me
was dead
occasioned by the vehicle
of melancholy blues.

I thought about committing suicide
but resorted to literary suicide
to the extent my head
and hand were dead.
Imagine what happened to me?
And I hated love to a fault.

I was even depressed
while writing this
but had no option
than to write
even as I couldn't attain
the climax of joy
I always attain
while writing.

I picked my mobile phone
people have forgotten
the number for long
to all,
because hardly does it beep,
but had no interest
to actually call any number.

I am not actually sick of poverty,
I am not actually
mentally sub-normal
but I think
a power more than
I can comprehend
overwhelmed me
and I looked myself
in the apartment,
not talking to any body,
but my mind
was talking more
than the parrot.

I thought about the government we have
and the good governance we don't have;
I thought about the many wedded homes
and the loveless homes everywhere;
I thought about the Independence Day
and its celebration, and the many
independent persons we never had;
I thought about the religions we have
and the immoralities that abound around;
I thought about the democracy we have
and the undemocratic-democrats in saddle;
I thought about the many awarded contracts
and the contradicting-contractors they are awarded;

I thought about many things
and hoped I am not the only person held by depression

when I was held by this thought.

Don't tell me about Democracy

Written by Odimegwu Onwumere

If this is the Democracy
that helped the soil
swallow many of our own
for its attainment,
don't tell me about Democracy
again.

Don't tell me about a democracy
a set of cabals are hiding under
exhibiting heinous acts
their pronounced autocrats
counterparts would want to avoid.

Don't tell me about a Democracy
that its features are unfriendly
to those who laboured for it
as if they plucked ant infested firewood
to themselves.

Don't tell me about a Democracy
that we are enduring perilous time
and rarely anybody is noticing our suffering,
because this is Democracy?

Don't tell me about a Democracy
that a party wants to swallow others
because those in it are heinous:
They are ruling without manifestoes,
let alone a befitting policy
for those watching them.

Don't tell me about a Democracy
where votes and franchises
are relegated to the background
but imposition is most supreme.

Don't tell me about a Democracy
the presumed democrats
are ruling from aircrafts
and from 5Star hotels in overseas.

Don't tell me about a Democracy
that the self-acclaimed democrats
they are not, can't provide
job opportunities for job-seekers.

Don't tell me about a Democracy
where people are taken to
dilapidated hospitals for treatment
and buried on avoidable ailments.

Don't tell me about a Democracy
that was fought for, from the looters
of our wealth & sensibility;
now replaced by tyrant-democrats
but became arch-looters themselves,
with pen.

Don't tell me about a Democracy
where democrats are not sort for,
irrespective of party, creed or region,
but party members are most revered;
even if a member was a dictator
he can be a democrat?

Don't tell me about a Democracy
or either you “campaign for democracy”
but tell me about good governance
and campaign for good governance
because democracy is like church
righteous people and sinners hide in
expelling natural sins
and much attention wouldn't be drawn
like it were autocracy.

Odimegwu Onwumereis the Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), and a Media Consultant based in Rivers State. +2348032552855. [email protected]