The Nation Newspaper

Tag: SNAPSONG

  • SNAPSONG: Delinquent Defectors (Part 2)

    Here, once again,

    Our Prostitutes in Power (PIP)

     

    This, once again,

    Is their season of migration

    Corpulent Birds of Prey who bury the people’s fate

    In the pit of their putrid stomachs

     

    Umbrella in the morning

    Broom at noon

    Hammer and Sickle at night

    All these and more the following day

     

    Strangers to Honour

    Perverters of Principle

    Venal vagabonds who dangle sacred Loyalty

        Before the highest or lowest bidder

     

    Their mouths are graveyards

    For assassinated Truth;

    Their dreams nightmares

    For a mad, misbegotten country

     

    Caucuses at night

    Caucurses during the day:

    Nigeria’s Prefects of Perfidy

    Are leagued against our commonweal

     

    Our Very Right Honourables are back again,

    Shameless dogs to their wormy vomit

    Rigging, rampaging, and romping all the way

    While the people watch in damnable silence

  • SNAPSONG 26

    The truth we fear

    Sometimes comes from an enemy’s mouth

    The neighbor most ignored

    May become our timeliest savior

     

    The fool runs and runs

    Without a backward glance

    The porridge of a thousand years

    May still scald the careless finger

     

    When your day is passing

    Through its brightest noon

    Do not forget to watch your shadow

    The deadliest snake lurks in the handsome grass

     

    The elephant swallows the mountain

    A terrible rumble unsettles the forest

    The Sage wonders at the needless ruckus

    When one big thing plays with its bigger mate

     

    Do not throw away those petals

    Which you plucked from the flower of your youth

    The tree of old age

    Has many branches but scanty leaves

     

     

    Do not count the holes

    In an old man’s mouth

    Every toothless gum in that cave

    Was once a well of matchless bones