The Fugitive Soul

By Rex. U. Clarke

"We love the things we love for what they are."

― Robert Frost

 

Words have the power to reverbera

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rex U. Clarke
• Release date: Sep 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781916696761

Book preview

Public Outrage

Malakhala–Taboo Has Run Naked

A Fictional Recollection of the 21st-Century Dilemma

So much time, Malakhala, of your gracious absence.

I remember your couth, scolding, prejudiced manner, rapt in the thought of a new Earth someday.

impugning a less optimistic view of Earth reborn, the stalemate of resolute past and tested patience as we rue irretrievable days.

Akunkun! Each day gives birth to a new event like an impromptu guest.

Now, events overtake events transmuting the life and the world we live in today.

In sorrow, man seeks the shelter of redemption.

A far cry—of Obey! Obey!

Must do, can't do, love to do, and hate to do.

Malakhala, taboo has run naked!

II

Malakhala today, one survives with fortitude.

The impunity of injustice, of those who loathe the world burgeons.

Malakhala, since our immediate thoughts have learnt how to peregrinate faster than the speed of sound,

we've anchored our tenuous hope to life's infinite mercy.

We've loathed the gravestone, the cemetery, the domicile ghouls,

while we embraced folklore of longevity—

the alien's superstition that resides in the ingress of the galaxy.

Since the ghouls' naïve thoughts have swayed them,

That their egos have grown more significant than their creator's—

but more significant, they are not.

Malakhala, calamity begets calamity.

At what junction do we find peace?

The calamitous ethos has been hovering over our wisdom's barren land,

barring us from peace and freedom.

Akunkun, sadly, rectitude cannot return.

Malakhala, taboo has run naked.

III

Ah! Malakhala, what if the day withholds its gracious blessings–

Who do we blame?

Or is it the ancestors who have shunned civilization for the cradle of ancient days?

We lament the denigration of man.

Akunkun! Putrefied souls in the dungeon of crypt cannot be saved, they too fear the omnipotence of political correctness—Shalabalu!

Malakhala, man is starved!

–the demise of common sense

–regret for unwary hearts Flesh, spirit, blood—defiled!

There is no meaning.

The essence of man is dead—

Once noble, now dethroned from grace.

Humanity squanders its amour-propre, but whose lot, is it?

Akunkun!  Before the exculpation.

man has always parried the guilt of lustful conscience to the innocent wind.

Sadly, not anymore.

Malakhala, taboo has run naked!

IV

Praise to them that have contrived to expose us to the taboo of no silence.

Malakhala, what have you seen?

we were great acolytes of decency,

before the perfidious light of civilisation gleamed on us.

Its advent has consumed our civility-

and repudiation dissipates like the morning fog.

Akunkun, what happened to our ancestors' legacy?

Did they hurry to sleep to escape civilisation?

Implore them, to hold fast in their sleep; should they wake up,

I fear their eyes will never close again. Akunkun, the world is stupefied.

Malakhala, taboo has run naked.

V

Malakhala, our mutinous sons bear the weight of the unknowing.

their chests are too heavy to carry.

They emulate the ways of mutiny.

Their souls are infested by insubordination.

Malakhala, what has happened to the knowledge of ancient?

Can the knowledge of the ancestors be resuscitated?

We once cherished and passed down our heritage, but the young men now stand tall,

afraid to even kneel in reverence or prayer.

What an abomination!

Their teeth can no longer cage their imprudent tongues— they're now unfazed by the abomination of the land.

Malakhala, taboo has run naked!

VI

The ways of our mothers were divine since the days of inception;

their feminine instinct needs no guidance to the path of virtue,

begin ordained with valuable lessons.

But our glorious daughters of these days walk with bare breast,

insouciant to the delight of gawkers.

This treacherous seduction is madness.

Malakhala, is this the way of the new  life?

Our daughter's eyes now too big for their heads, watching the eagles hunt for prey:

Quick-witted, opportunistic, bewitched by civilisation— Akunkun, the world must wake from its  slumber.

Malakhala, taboo has run naked!

VII

At the holy junction of reinvention,

the impetuous foot of revolution takes shape.

Malakhala, how can we find our voice without courageous hearts?

We'll not find our voice in the moon; it is void of soul and full of  mystery.

If civilisation chooses to impregnate us with social consciousness,

we shall receive it in peace, without prejudice.

Akunkun, they have declared the earth a cradle of liberalism, do you not see?

Malakhala, taboo has run naked.

VIII

Akunkun! The world has changed.

The Earth splits at will; oceans flood the towns, the rage of high tide.

The skies, a flood we can’t bear.

Climate in quandary; creatures of the air, land, and sea, slowly but surely disappearing from the face of the earth.

Akunkun, I think nature is irked with  humanity.

Man has changed the doctrines of  life.

Malakhala, today, we see, is already in question; what will our tomorrow be like?

Our technology has made us impulsive it has become an unholy guide.

IX

Malakhala, lament not the jamboree,

the political rhetoric, the propaganda amassed.

Cry not over global warming and hatred that destroys us.

Even the professional mourners cannot cry enough.

Honest tears elude them.

They have become mourning chambers of evil.

Akunkun! Yesterday fades in the dawning of  sorrow

Shalabalu! If the abyss of hypocrisy has swallowed all who are holy,

Each now with their own merriment of ideologies, then who will inherit this earth?

Taboo has run rampant Taboo has led us astray.

Malakhala, taboo has run naked!

Why In My Nigeria?

The Droll Tale of a Republic

Why in my Nigeria?

The strain of laughter lies bare and broken, wading through the shallow rivers of disparity.

No wonder, the interest.

No respite or shortages of political candidates flocking to the Pilgrimage of governance.

Swearing by blood and word – Yet they fail in kindness and truth.

A delusion of dispassionate minds.

Since the word hope is hewn between faith and faint – The choice of life meanings little.

In Nigeria, false wealth is amassed with instant passion – No regret on bloodstained hands infested with guilt.

Salvation rite is a narrow path to heaven. Still, they sin at will.

A rim of class they erect visibly shading their senses from the reality of life.

Their wand casts a vile spell on the needy, their voices lost in the wilderness of sorrow, their aspirations auctioned in the open market at a worthless price.

The buyers rejoice at their worthlessness.

Why in my Nigeria?

The selected few preside over the majority. 

Democracy has been ambushed by mobocracy aid and abet by ochlocracy.

Her dividend putrefies in the cabals' impious pouches.

Though they reign not forever, their sin attains its acme in praise-

from their cohorts.

They credulously worship for crumbs on their knees; still, they moan and faint.

The abundance of the land is not strewn all over the level playing field; the field, where only the strong partake with might, trampling on the wretched because their souls are in want, why?

Also, the chamber of law has begotten the seeds of mobocracy, heavy and many.

The house hosts their baptism of evil, evil dwells therein.

Their escapade thrives since the errant gun trigger has gone asleep, far deep asleep it snoozes.

How I wish its bullets were not reprimanded to remain silent, perhaps its silence would not have been in vain.

Time has made enmity with lost years.

Truth and kindness banished; all carried away beyond remembrance.

Even the righteous now seeks a reprieve for their salvation.

I see their faith swarming to the hill for miracle –still no redemption.

Their hypocritical, whitewashed tongues cry for holy avowal as their voices scream,

Holy! Holy! Still no mercy.

Evil has prospered too long in the land.

The apocalyptic day had arrived earlier for the harvest of the amoral souls.

Imagination can only be willed to the believers whose hope is in the infinite cosmos of doom; the birth of a new revival is half-conceived; due process.

How long will the sunshine before night  falls?

How long will the country remain accursed before it's shown the way of blessing?

How long will it take for common sense to arrive?

Before foolishness casts us into the permanent abyss of ignorance.

A nation where freedom is measured by worth.

Massive wall of indifference is the only source of reference— their boisterous voice spews filthy vermin.

The weakest link is sent to an early grave by the unlawful employment of fearsome gladiators.

The just never live by faith; faith lives with them that don't contemplate.

The erosion of power is the obscured vision of the lame.

State banquet is more lavished than the last supper.

Prayers for repentance is often off the menu; still, they jolly in nonchalance.

As the masses’ hope is finagled, washed offshores mixed with the tide of uncertainty.

They howl for change with tear and jeers, but still, aspiration is cast down.

Charted ambition has come to a permanent end just as the earth gobbles the water that drops from the rain, So, their days are subdued in the kingdom of doom – no compassion for the masses.

Only with their fussy eyes will they see their optimism evaporate in political obfuscation, commiseration.

The glorious days are excluded from the pages of antiquity.

Overtly, we've praised the day victory was archived, but it’s true tale is narrated in an ephemeral story between their poisonous lips as patriotism is jettison.

Yet in a billion years we won't say how great a nation it was when our heroes gallantly fought through the battlefield of fate to stand lofty in the podium of glory.

Still, at the mention of the name, carnage erupts in the minds of Nigerian critic; they swear not to know  how

great it was then, in her glorious days.

So, Let it be proclaimed that the land is blessed.  Let it be said, the people of the land are beautiful. Let it be said, their God is wonderful. The envoy of justice is on its way, to show democracy the way to salvation.

On our knees, we shall pray for its safe arrival; then shall we exult its bountiful blessing upon Nigeria.

The Burden Of Niger Delta

Oil, Conflict, and Injustice

Ah! We've cried so much without tears.

The eyelid is not convinced of its