"Dark Rites" by Benson Monday Joseph

Ikwuoche is dead!

He ate his wife's food the night before,

Aleku has taken its toll!

Amaka has gone bald,

She must sleep with her husband's corpse

To prove her innocence.

Oba Durojaiye is no more!

Seven of our sons must share in the spoil,

Ifa has spoken!

There's just so much I hate to say,

The surreal practices of the black race.

I have been to the hinterland,

I've seen much more than I understand,

How they pay obeisance to some piece of clay,

And offer supplications for daily grace.

Across the arid and humid clime,

Girls still go naked at their prime,

She must do the best she can,

To feed the Child and the Man.

Yet, you still hear our Fathers say;

I hate the White Man's way,

They fed us at noon,

And at night, left stealthily with their spoon,

The white man is all the evil we cannot see,

He's the reason we still live under the tree.

He brought us out of our cave,

And sold us out as slave.

Odiegwu!!!

But the white man did not create the Aleku,

We killed our twins before he came,

And gave our daughters no name.

Before the gods go to sleep,

If at all they had ever been awake,

Your sons no longer make their heap,

Your daughters no longer go to the lake!

They've read the white man's book,

They are now off your hook!!!

Benson Monday Joseph studies at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State.