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. 

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