Osu Caste Poem by John Chizoba Vincent

I don't know when these lines ran off my shouldering lips this morning...
but I guessed they are spirit and being,
home and forest, evil and sorrow.
I don't know that men are made of
two spirits & souls & bodies until
I saw a boy cast out from his clan.
his body remained in the Obi of his
forebearers whilst his spirit went & his
Soul sang a dirge and elegy among his kindred who watched amidst laughter whilst the other of his body, soul, and spirit went beyond.
I don't know why my blood sipped from his tears and flew down to the ground,
I don't know why culture made men insane like the mad masquerade that was bitten by a snake.
I don't know why we rejected our own in the name of caste system &traditions.
are we not same breathe from same god?
I don't know why we sang last night,
I don't know why we made the moon shine on others and cast it away from ourbrothers in the ditch to cry and die.
and we dragged their shadows to bury in the evil forest where the unseen gods live.
Let me see your palms and your eyes,
The stars are the easing thought there of,
Let me see your lips andhair,
are they not the same colour with that man sent out last night?
The name of every caste is in our mouth,
blood. Water. Spirit. Souls. Bodies.
The names of every Osu is a bosom of every river flowing eastward.
They are the images climbing the sign whilst the world was dancing to a lonely lullabies.
We made them see the stars descending with black roses & yelling & belching.
My mother was a victim,
my father was a victim,
and that piece of a broken boy was also a victim of this hiccupped mayhem.
Yesterday,the town crier said with a prelude light song that two bodies was found in the street & my people cared not but languised in wine &merriment.
This still remain our fate as my brother went visiting his head &was chasedaway by her father cos he is an Osu.


Yours Poetically,
©John Chizoba Vincent