Excerpted from a forthcoming book entitled Corpses on the Menu: Blood, Bullets and Bones
Graduate of Clan War Academy
Born in the eruption of blasts
Beneath ballistic missiles
While poorly parents pithless
Were procuring for bililiqo loots
At three he won a grand award
Reciting names of eighty weapons weird
In the Warfare Hymn Competition
Held in the Clan War Kindergarten
Swiftly manoeuvring machine guns
In a blink planting deadly bombs
Odd activities in army tactics
Expert the orphan was at six
An alien army when he engaged
As a leader of the Under-Ten Brigade
Though unable to inscribe the alphabet
Attained emeritus at age ten
In a prestigious Clan War Academy
Vulgarity so Anointed
Tribally drafted
Enforced motivation
Careless commitment
Vulgarity anointed
In a bosom empty
Of love and passion
He who lost wisdom
Went wild into war
Wrecking
Wretched
Wrecks
Death and life - alike
Growth and doom - alike
Heartless and humanity - alike
Hatred and harmony - alike
So men fed on hooves and honey
With hungry hounds hollering in empty
Yards, yearning for yams
While the reeling havoc rages
Wrecking
Wretched
Wrecks
Moral De-values
Ferocity of acts passionless
Incurring her indignities thoughtless;
Ooze of virginity blood ceaseless
And the undignified body lifeless
Those bogus warriors mindless
Failures, rascals, heartless
At the hands of moryaans pitiless (1)
The beautiful one lays motionless
Thugs applauding anarchy senseless
Wicked perpetrators ethic-less
A lot among the cursed, faithless
Pernicious buccaneers merciless
Made us a nation xikmo-less (2)
A society rendered much xeer-less (3)
Among those attributed as xishmo-less (4)
Wanderers so despised as xarun-less (5)
The Price of Disobedience
When Dubbad gave us that glance
In swelled face of annoyance
We looked down in avoidance
Taking refuge in our silence
It hurt; the lack of prominence
Disturbance to his intelligence
For which he lacked inheritance
Except in the form of vengeance
The prevalence of negligence
We depicted in ultimate defiance
Of an attitude emboldened with turbulence
Emerged in his ever sickly variance
He cocks a huge deadly appliance
To contain our pertinent recalcitrance
For not bowing in acceptance
Thus violating his importance
We emptied the scene of the occurrence
Scampering, squeezing into an ambulance;
Under influence of a whiffy smelly substance
He released a hellish rocket loud and nuisance
“Alloow magantaa! Alloow magantaa!”
Oh Lord! Protect us!
Endnotes
1. Mooryaan: means marauding armed gangs that loot, rape and cause human suffering
2. Xikmo: (Arabic origin) relates to wisdom, conscience and sound moral judgment
3. Xeer: is Somali for customary law by which every citizen of a culture is bound
4. Xishmo: means dignity, profound respect and honor
5. Xarun: means home, abode, nation
Mohamed A. Eno is a Kenyan Somali poet and scholar. He is Dean of St Clements University-Somalia, and Senior Lecturer of ADNOC Technical Institute where teaches English in the Academic Foundation Program. Eno has contributed chapters in academic books and journals. His works include The Bantu Jareer Somalis: Unearthing Apartheid in the Horn of Africa (London: Adonis and Abbey Publishers), and most recently co-authored “Whose Values Are Promoted in the African Union’s ‘Shared Values’ Project? for the African Renaissance. He has two forthcoming poetry volumes entitled Corpses on the Menu: Blood, Bullets and Bones, and Guilt of Otherness: A Brief Personal Memoir in Poetry. Eno’s projects in progress include a conference paper “Glimpsing the Impact of Language Policy and Language Planning on Somali Academics” and a poetry volume under the title: A Verse for Zayed: Lessons on Leadership and Its Legacy.
