When breasts like hills stood on their chests
And babies never began to ride on their backs,
The living dead, our incomparable jewels
Dared not rub faeces on the faces of their mothers
But in comely greetings, their tireless knees
Often touch the surface of the earth
Here and there, proudly they paraded
The untainted beauty of their native skin
Dressed they like corns when in spruce apparels,
Showing no sexy bait to tempt their brothers
The lost value of other worlds
When their teeth could swiftly brake bones
And senile never came calling for their strengths,
The living dead, the muscle behind great harvests
Dared not stare at their father’s face to object
When called to forest as cutlasses and hoes
And never they, for fashions became madmen;
As today’s youths fondly without a single shame,
Dragging feet in marketplaces like pregnant ducks
Raising shoulders up in pride like confused apes,
And sagging to bare foul butts in rugged rags,
The reigning madness in this filthy world
When life sang chances to listeners wide and free
Before mirrors came as barter for their souls,
Here, able men married to their green offices
Planting, hunting, while women were gathering
All done with bullets in their life surviving guns,
Near and far, altogether, here they aptly explored
Having no thought to live by outsider’s inventions
And lo, the world was too much with them,
For gods were very happy
But alas,
The opposites have arrived with sweet shames
Now, children taunt parents with lips and fists,
Nude steals streets with styles of modern madness,
And thorns remain only survivors on our fertile acres
Alas! This isn’t our way, this isn’t what they gave us!
Alas, our ingrate feet could no longer fit the soles;
Our fathers, our mothers, left behind for us to wear
Our blind hearts are given to sordid influences:
Policies that fetch us no fortune
Imports that ferry us no forward:
Needless grains, plastic machines of no meaning,
Skimpy bikinis that add no rank to our cultures,
And lotion that bleach us no better,
But only killing us slowly, and slowly
Like vultures feeding on carcasses
So all the gods of this land I humbly beseech
With this naked Nile flowing down from my weary eyes
May they forgive and please, give us sight!
Before it’s too late, alas! Before it’s too late,
To see this second coming of the west whirlwind
And for our noses to smell the stenches of our lives
That we may come back to our conscious senses
That we may know how fertile these lands are;
And till them to wear back their fruity greenery
That we may go back and pick up afresh:
Our heritage, the best life, we’ve thrown away
Alas! This isn’t our way, this isn’t what they gave us!
Alas, our ingrate feet could no longer fit the soles;
Our fathers, our mothers, left behind for us to wear
Written by James T. Abel Adesitimi
