Songs of Anisha
“Soloist for the State,”
by Nnaemeka Oruh
The land is green,
It’s green for me.
Even in the marshes
We could hear her voice,
Knifing through
Our consciousness
Dragooning feelings of
Patriotism from
Those who have been
Purged clean of such feelings.
TY,
Soloist for the state,
I marvel!
I marvel at the prompts
To your sonorous melody
Portraiture of what is not.
I look around—even
In this marshland,
The grasses have become brown.
I face the streets,
Pot bellied children
Stagger around on
Broomstick legs
I turn further,
See the graduates,
The whimpering soles of their shoes,
Scrapped to the leather
As they trudge the streets
In search of non-existent jobs.
The land is green,
It’s green for me.
I find greenness,
In vacant ghostlike eyes
Of the millions trudging the streets.
I seek greenness,
In the hemp-reddened eyes of the youths,
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