The poor souls — Aishatu Umar Wali

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The poor souls

I saw them,
On the bumpy, battered, broken
roads,
That ghastly, ghostly, gloomy way,
With its cracked, curvy, crooked
bends,
Which send you tumbling to the
other world.

I saw them,
Compacted,
In a rickety, rackety, rowdy van,
That silly, smelly, stinking cell,
Which hoped and danced and made,
Some noisy sound,
And sang a thousand awful tunes,
All of which could shatter the head.

I heard the;
Groan…
Oh! the scorching, stinging, seeth-
ing sun,
Their throats burning with a biting
thirst,
Their tummies rumbled with growl-
ing noise,
Eyes rolled, oh, this pinching, pierc-
ing pain!
What! tears from these poor, poor
souls?
Tears from the teeny-tiny tortured
eyes?
They sighed, swayed and swallowed
hard,
They squinted, blinked, with blurred
eyes.
And look up to the most nigh,
Yes! they prayed, the poor, poor
souls.

Hours later, driver stopped,
“Time I took some coke and cake,”
he felt,
“And all the goodies I can find.”
And those poor, poor souls?
“Hell, who needs to feed some lousy,
loamy cows?”
See how he laughed as he filled his
belly up,
See how he talked and joked and
sipped his coke,
And the poor, wretched, darling
souls?
They twitched and twirled and
burned to the core,
They gasped and mooed and shook
with pain,
It touched my heart, my being, my
all,
It moved my soul, I seethed with
rage.
Yes! laugh now, while you can,
I long to see you on judgement day,
As you kneel before the Lord of all,
And you account for every single
deed!

Aishatu Umar Wali

EDITOR’S NOTE

Originally published in Citizen on 30 Nov 1992, p. 39. This diplomatic transcription preserves the wording and lineation visible in the archived page.

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