The Cable Thieves Poem by Tony Adah

Some where in a distance
The public light poles stood
Conversing silently with the sagging cables
Insulators broken and hanging like bats
The contractor has collected his piece
Of the national cake, the work undone.

Some how the district needs light
For the sun sojourns in and out
And the industries though absent now
Would need power to drive them when they come
Or wake from the slumber those sleeping now
The town, the suburb and the folk
All need more than unpredictable moon.

That's why the contract was given
but failed
There are young men in the neighborhood
Who do not want to see the project succeed
They at night move in a derelict Peugeot trunk
Picking cables and winding them into their truck
And the insulators they all carted away
To sell a merchant dealer of these accessories.

They have shot themselves on the foot,
The contractor and the merchant and the thieves
And the district remains in darkness
The thieves are better for it,
They need darkness to prowl
In their thievery
But a thief will not prowl the night unend
Just that the moon is on
He brings backwards as his government
And everyone is taking the blame
Like eating their own portion of the national cake.