__After Chalk & Duster, a movie

we’re the lamps on which

the flame of education burns.

our wicks are weakened by men’s

frigidity. no palm-oil to fuel our passion.

or perhaps as the candle sticks?

you watch us ebb down

as decade mounts on decade

do you ever look back on

who lightens the obscure point

you once stepped your feet

and feebly walked your way to destiny?

dear sir! a man of the people

i see how your subtle speech

washed sense out of your countrymen’s brains

your sly hoe of sophistry

cultivating into people’s heart

& you hold the metropolis on lockdown

deny the teachers who taught

your old abecedarian, ABC

hello Mr calculus. remember

an old master took you through the ideation

of Bodmas, now you prance on

equations with compound-complex elements

waving flag of further maths mastery.

hey! poet laureate, i see your sleights

weave cryptic letters

remember the genesis of this exodus

when that smiling mistress

thought your hand to write the nursery rhymes

your Shakespearean brain could not discern?

i shall tell of one more grave injustice

the world of hypocrisy has snobbed

that the guardians of knowledge

are fed as paupers, with pittance,

when they should be fed at king’s palace.

Poet’s Bio

OLAJUWON JOSEPH OLUMIDE is a three-time winner of the Brigitte Poirson Poetry Contest. A graduate of Mass communication. A teacher of English language and, Literature in English and Creative & Cultural Arts. He’s currently serving his father land in Kiru, Kano State.

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