Fruitless and Wasteful Hope

Our hopes have been dashed!
We, who were once worrying
to attain democracy.

We saw the military as vampires.
Today, how many of us could remember
those things we were worrying about
that democracy has brought?

Democracy that saw
some of our mighty
men and women
pummeled to the soil,
because they spoke,
before it was attained?

Virtually nothing
has worked out.

They are still recycling
ideas and agendas
that never move us on
to anywhere.

We are still sitting
like a shrub
among the poplars.

What is happening
today is assuming
that those that died
wasted fruitless
efforts and energy
for us to be here.

Has anything turned out right?

They just sit there
like those quarreling
with the world,
forgetting that they have not
settled any plights at home.

It is a gesture to dislike
when we wake up and feel bored
instead of feeling joyous
occasioned by the ugly pills
of maladministration
they are watering down our throat
to our contempt.

They take trips
but do not take
their ugly misrule
on trip.

They forgot that all
their journeys are fruitless
as they leave us
in this perpetual pains
and abject penury.

They have barren hearts
to better our people,
and they can be seen
as the most fruitless people
we have ever seen.

Their beautiful words raise hopes,
but the outcomes are just as fruitless
as a tree with fine leaves but no fruit.

They are studying politics and government
but have itching ears to study humanity
which is what we need now
since we are in their muddled administration.

Their promises have become
the perverse of nature
because they left us the moment
they achieved our support.

They have harassed themselves with fruitless nosiness.

They have just little
knowledge of human nature,
because they exhibit
the knowledge of Satan
that has left most of us unhappy.

Their Satan dispositions
are wasting our lives
as we accumulate years
without accumulating
the dividends of democracy.

They are using over
arguments and over grammar
to lead us. But, why?

When we ask what is on their agenda?
They say, “We promise you good governance.”
But, can anybody tell us
the parameter that is used
in measuring 'good governance'
without agenda?

While we are struggling
to reduce their wasteful spending,
they are struggling to reduce
the mouth that says that
they are frivolously
expending taxpayers' money.

They are taking thoughtless risks
by accumulating funds
that will make their generations
lazy and stupid.

They are behaving like one
who has a strange relationship with time,
but most of them have been in and out of that place,

yet they do not know what to do with time,
and they are begging for more time of wasteful sprees.

Well, their behaviours do not surprise us
because free occupation is always wasteful.

Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Author, Media/Writing Consultant and Motivator, is the Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), Rivers State. Mobile: +2348032552855 . Email: [email protected]