A Pow’s Verse Poem by Ike Chime

Absolute loneliness
Lost in this dungeon
Nowhere to go
No friends
No companion
But the walls of my cell
Which re-echo back my thoughts

For breakfast
strokes of bulala
For lunch de-humanization
For super frustration
Indefinite fasting
For how long
For how long echoed the walls

The walls, my only companion

Dreamt last night of home
Walked familiar paths
Then, enter, dream killer
Hostile bang on my cell door
It is daylight again
Thought it was home
Expecting mother to call
In her familiar way
‘rise and shine son, it’s a beautiful day’
– the jangle of chains
bounding my hands and feet.

My eyes met the walls
The door yanked open
exposing my tormentor
A mask of all ugliness of a face
With bold lines stretching from mouth to ear
Exposing a gworo – tinted teeth
“aweje maza maza aaam brruuu….uba”
Weak to get up, bedraggled
To give the buttock and back
It’s usual breakfast,
Creating new 'bulala' marks,
drawing fresh blood from old ones
Making me sing my usual morning ballad

Healthy breeds of hair lice
Robust body fleas
Consummate what is left of me
Well, I still play a useful role
in the order of nature, I thought
A sumptuous meal for the bugs


Scratch the skins, scratch
Scratch with your unkempt dirty fingernails
Serrate your laps, buttock, belly and back
Leaving tracks of trickling blood
Shall it ever end and how?
Shall it ever end and how - echoed the walls.
The walls, my only companion