These Words Will Protect Us

These words will protect us
when the children of doom
appear at our doorstep
with message from Iku
on moonless nights of peril.

These words will protect us
when journeying missiles
tell tales of hastened mortality
on serene battlefields.

These words will protect us
when neighbours turn minstrels
that sing with livid tongues and teary gongs,
of Boko ruffians; miserable mindless machines
in the hands of political puppeteers.

I say, these words will protect us
when promise of willing virgins
makes men deaf to the sound of logic
and turns jolly streets into
sites of macabre massacre fest.

These words will protect us,
be our shield and solace,
our anthem of prayers,
custodians of our sanity
against these louts of terror.