Drummers — Diyel Garba

Listen to them once more
Playing on the taut drum
Of human passion
At the cabalistic covens.

Fingerplug your ears
Not to hear the siren tattoo
Of gamto which shears
Off human reason.

Beware the leopard’s
Awesome membrane
That excites the heart
To hanker for
Streams of gore.

And do not heed
The primitive message
No, do not succumb
To the primeval beats
Pulsing a combo
Of hatred and strife
From the drums, whose drums?
The drums of Danwaire
The tones of which
force the feet
To step to a dance — macabre
May rhythms
Fail to drown the head…