FOUL FARM, FARM FOUL

(Note To First-Ever Africa-South America Summit, ABUJA 2006)

Our land is breeding:
not food but famine
not winners but weaklings
not mothers but murders
not honour but horror
As for man, materials have
taken his place
As for hope, hype dealt
it a fatal blow
and hell has taken over
The lucky generations have
blocked tunnels, channels
and passages
The doomed generations are
pruning their chances
to bare bones
in the heat of waste
From these throes
the web of multiple traps
is choking our willing limbs
From this betrayal
a million scenes have grown
into the movie reels of angst
so our land conjures blockbuster
tales and magic cartoons
Neither the Sage nor the sapling
can fathom this thunderbolt
The eerie passion of diabolical
leaders meets a sonorous silence
of deprived masses, in a kokoma
peace of the grave-yard:
cloaking the poverty of leadership
the depravity of dishonour
and mesmerisation of short-termism
Oh, be not deceived!

No roads for tractors
autobahns for tanks
No cash for ploughers
foreign aid for choppers
No stores for harvests
vast dumps for bombs
Hard times for kids
swell life for thugs
As we turn our fields to graves
we search for help abroad
As we loot our land to death
we beg for stones abroad
When the giver sets snide terms
we turn whimsical in fits!
Pray shame

We foul our farm with glee
robing greed as glory
posting stench as status
Farm be great fantasy
in white and green, blue and red
black or yellow paper rituals
fouling senses, freaking sensibilities
Farms be seething staples
gasping for life in annual budgets
jinxed programmes, junk projects
As we go, when we go
others farm fruits of health
we farm foul health
we foul the air
and choke fair help away
For easy dough, we foul
For easy fame, we foul
For all our shame, we foul
the bond of change
and send the Sage to rage!
Pray pain

We have no centre
lest it holds
We shun them griots
none to heed
Poor moms, how cope ye now
Lost dads, where seek ye more
Our lands be slaughter fields
not farms or mines
Our forests be blighted fields
all gone to logs
Our waters quench thirst no more
just rivers of blood -
fouled by ruptured bowels
of pregnant beauties;
soaked in crying crimson
of craggy kids;
virussed with drawing matter
from riddled skulls!
It is a curse of mounting contempt
flowing from our mountains of hate
jumpy intolerance, and haunting distaste
It is a blessing seen and denied
It be hell undue, love untaken
It is how we look in base brashness
and react in feverish frenzy
The Sage be so in pain

Yes, it is the farm we foul
and the fouling we farm
It is how we mock
and now, we're mocked
Pray change

See extensive commentary at www.onoviranobzervatory.blogspot.com and join the crusade!