Bad Times Are Here Poem by Tony Adah

Bad times are here
Of season with snow and hails
Which is why our pockets are frozen
Pay cheques are lingering
And we are on shoestrings.

The gas is gone and the burners are
Waiting for the next matchstick
Like the chicken for its teeth.
Our little abandoned stove derelict from disuse
Has come alive
Smothering with choking reeks
And a flickering flame
That blackens our pots.

Bad times are here
We are almost hibernating
But the debt of hunger
Is always by the door
The dregs of everything we search
Like something is lost in the house.

We warm our palm oil holders
To thaw the remnants of oil
And change the face of our soups
Food is anything that fills a void in our tummies
And it is not written on our faces
The contents of our tummies
Bad times are here
To widen the gulf between
The have and the have-not!