Can They Detain The Poem?

If they detain the poet

Can they detain the poem

If they now bundle your flesh

In their bundle of lies

And throw your body behind bars

Can they detain the poem

Can they?

 

Then would words burst

Into splinters of fury

Alphabets angrily sizzling out

Through grating bars

To reassemble outside

Into more terrifying  words

Then would woe betide the jailer!

 

Dagga them! Dagga them!

With tongue of Cosmos own sword

Dagga them! Dagga them!

With words that wound the Spirit

Dagga them! Dagga them!

With blade that cuts the psyche.

 

If they detain the poet

Can they detain the poem

This poem is your Spirit

Forever roaming unquenchable

Long after mortar flesh is gone

And dust returns to dust

This poem is eternity!

 

So if they now bundle your flesh

In their bundle of lies

And throw your body behind bars

Can they detain the poem

Can they?

            

Copyright: Dumbiri Frank Eboh

 

Dagga - Dagga Tolar  is a Lagos based poet and former chairman, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Lagos state chapter, who was detained in 2010 for organizing a protest against police extra Judicial killings in Ajegunle, a popular ghetto in Lagos, Nigeria. The poem was written when he was still in detention. 

Categories: Poetry