A Conversation between Musa and John

Musa:
I know you have love for me,
and you want us to be together

John:
I also know you live a life of peace
and you want me to have that peace as well

Musa:
But can you really love me the way you love yourself like you said?

John:
Why not?
Didn’t Jesus die for us because he loved us?

Musa:
Please John, if you want me to love you
the way you say you love me,
you will have to keep that Jesus of yours to yourself
because it is Mohammed I know, the holy prophet of Allah whom I love

John:
If that pleases you, Musa.
But if you want us to enjoy peace together as well,
You will also have to keep your Mohammed to yourself
Because I am at peace with Jesus, the only son of God, Jehovah

Musa:
But you must know, John That there is no true peace
without Islam

John:
And you must know too, Musa
That there is no true love without Christainity

Musa:
(laughs) that cannot be true, John.
Think about it:
Of what use is love without peace?
Of what use is love
if you cannot be at peace with me?

John
(smiles) and of what use is peace
without love, Musa?
Of what use is peace
If you cannot live in love with me?
You think about it too!

Musa:
Well, with peace,
I can be patient enough
to give you a chance
to show me
How love lives without peace.
Only then can you sleep
With that Bible of yours by the pillow.

John:
Oh, good! And with love,
I can trust you enough to give you a chance
To show me
how peace lives without love.
Only then can you sleep with that Koran of yours
by my side.

(c)Senator Ihenyen 2012

Senator Speaks: Yet Another Strike (for “Boko Haram”)

COMMENT:

To state that Nigeria today is facing one of the greatest security threats in her history is to make an understatement! Our nation has fast become a case study for local terrorism with an international dimension.

Security agencies have been overwhelmed. Government is clueless. Churches in the north have fast become death-traps to many, and even ivory towers are not an exception. Against this Boko Haram strangle-hold of the nation, Islamic leaders struggle to show that Islam is a religion of peace. We are at a crossroad.

Yet Another Strike (for “Boko Haram”)
they fight for a cause
a just cause they say
shedding blood
and shattering lives with bombs and bullets blasting from the rifles of their beliefs

taking lives of the innocent
to keep the soul of one man alive –
that man who was man alive
and became hero in death
and in the death of others, their god

blowing up our lives
the unity of a nation
into distintegration
like human bodies after the blasts in the churches on sunday morning, chrismas eve, chrismas day

now we keep watchnight for doomsday
like Thisday struck on that fateful day

they are ravaging the nation
like a virus
dreadful and deadly
and now like open sores after the explosions
the gateway of diseases give way to self-destruction, self-annihilation,

even a street dog has sometime
to lick its wounds
but would these attacks
afford this bleeding giant a moment nurse its wounds,

as yet another bomb explodes in Kano city
tearing more lives apart…

Senator Ihenyen (May, 2012)

Another September 11

(Last year, on September 1, 2010, I wrote a poem titled “Between September 11 and September 1” following Obama’s fulfilment of the promise that U.S. soldiers would finally begin to leave Iraq. Today, it is another September 11. Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces. However, it appears there are now many Osama Bin Ladens in the world. I have extended the previous poem and retitled it, “Another September 11”).

September 11…

that tragic turn

that changed the world

the terror that struck the Pentagon

and the ripples of fear that spread across our heart

when man and beast stood side by side

and no one could tell who was man

and no one could tell who was beast.

September 1…

with the bloody bullets from our gathering guns

with the merciless missiles from our American armoury

man went to war with the beast.

When the last gunshots were heard after years of yearning

one left the land of the other

leaving behind blood and tears

shrouds of hate and love, flags of
hope and despair

and no one could tell who was man

and no one could tell who was beast.

And after a deadly decade of
haunting Osama

Obama makes a hero out of a virulent villain,

When in Pakistan bullets found the target
And far in the dead sea the body is buried.
But who would have known
That the villain
had become the hero
And the hero, the villain.

Searching

I search
for rainbow in the sky,
but there is no sunlight
piercing through the
ranting raindrops

and I begin to wonder
where to find its colours –
colours of my heart, colours of my dreams,
my hope.

In the emptiness,
I begin to understand
that if I could not look into the eyes
of the living around me
to see that the rainbow
gleams there too

I may never find the colours
to paint a better place
for you and me

(Selected from my collection of poems, “Colourless Rainbow”, SEARCHING is dedicated to all the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack and those affected by it through out the world. Peace to the world)re to find its colours –
colours of my heart, colours of my dreams,
my hope.

In the emptiness,
I begin to understand
that if I could not look into the eyes
of the living around me
to see that the rainbow
gleams there too

I may never find the colours
to paint a better place
for you and me

(Selected from my collection of poems, “Colourless Rainbow”, SEARCHING is dedicated to all the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack and those affected by it through out the world. Peace to the world).

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