Poor Cities! Poem by Haruna Garba

People are born to build cities

With flints and boulders they do
To perfect metropolitan view

Blind! Blind! Blind!
Yea! That is what they prove to be
Blind to the worming-build-up within
For the moment any single block is laid
Similar insidious one lodges up itself -
Potential destroyer of the palpable one

When finally the flash point is reached
Someone breathing fire will suddenly emerge
Flanked either side by the gullible ones
They'll sound the alarum bell
Flanked either side by the naïve ones
They'll fire their first episodic shots

Miserable days later take root
Now with ugly trucks of death
Next time with slug-swallowing tools
Faux harmattan taking control of the air
Aircrafts like cattle, in deadly droppings
Unlucky victims under rubbles
Lucky ones running to the rivers of Babylon

A coin is a coin
If it is that coin which I know so well
By all means toss it the way you like
Head or tail
It will always buy you the same thing

Alas! They would see the city's total collapse
Rather than acquiesce the regime's terminal span

Today's damages to buildings are mere chips
From the jaws of war caterpillars
The ones to follow not so sand-dunned enough
As to block the once busy city streets