Ordinary Folk

A Gong resounds yet again but its echo is sublime.
A mass of upraised eyes look Heaven ward for succour,
searching for the Town Crier.
When shall Manna come?

Various eyes,
Projected…skywards…
Reflecting their life’s worth of journeys.
Some sad,
some happy.
Most,
Ordinary folk,
living ordinary life’s of hope and promise.
Where did we get it wrong?

A little leaf sashays down in a gust of wind,
obeying the force of nature.
And us folk seat and reminisce in rocking chairs.
What did we do with our extant opportunities?

Beggarly little black kids for the umpteenth time
reach out anew for alms.
It’s a scenario that global television networks love,
a template that showcases blight ;
real or imagined,
across from Congo to Darfur then
Kigali, arcing back back to Bauchi,
sweeping across the desert to Timbuktu,
before zeroing in to Freetown.


Ordinary folk,
living ordinary lives of hope and promise,
despite the institutional betrayals;
minding their Goddamn business.
Ordinary folk,
Reflecting their life’s worth of journeys…
Some sad,
some happy.
Most safe…Did I hear cowardly?

That errant little leaf strikes a dirty pond
on a pot hole strewn tarred road in our backyard.
The concentric circles that leap out from this chance encounter,
impacts on  itself,
becoming attuned to passivity…
Becoming part of the surface tableau...

Ordinary folk,
living ordinary lives of hope and promise.
Some sad,
some happy.
Most,
like wrinkled leafs floating on dirty ponds.