18/06/2025
The Food Basket Full Of Blood.
The sun, darkened with blood,
Gazed down gloomily.
On his knees, a man wailed quietly.
In his bloodied arms, his wife lay motionless,
Their foetus dangling from her side, swaying as the man shook violently in tears,
Joy dispelled by the swing of the executioner’s sabre,
The food basket is full of blood.
In anguish, he watched,
Hidden behind the trees,
As they butchered flesh like pork.
First his brother, then his teenaged daughter,
No mercy shown the toddler.
No mercy for the unborn as the blade slashed its mother's belly.
They revelled - their masked executors. They revelled!
The blood their libation, the bodies their thrill.
The food basket is full of blood.
Night falls,
Draped in dread like royal garb.
The Idoma man, once brave, jumps at the gentle rustle of grass.
The Igede man keeps silent watch; one blink, and he may vanish.
The Tiv man, lost in despair, cries out: Why does the night linger?
When will morning return?
What will purge the food basket full of blood?
©Skola Avenya
