SLEEP NO MORE, NIGER DELTA - POEM
Sleep no more, Niger Delta
Be girded. Put on your amour caot
Roll out both tanks and trawwlers
Octopus-like monster rises
Sleep no more, Niger Delta
Heed life-and-death delineation:
It rises in the gab of dreamy youths
Like a Goliath it rises:
Body of brawn, brain of cock
Hates both book and bible
Neither has moral nor morale
Like secret cult it rises
It rises in gab of grabbing chiefs
And gleeful drunken swash-bucklers
It rises like a cannibal cabal
Pouring crude, pouring blood
It rises so your water is crimson blend
Sleep no more, Niger Delta
When the din of denials trite has become
And whites cruelty-cries banal sound
Cry you may, but sleep no more
Sleep no more, Niger Delta
Your crude has murdered sleep!
At once step into the breach I command!
Take up the full coat of sleepless armour and defend.
Keep vigil-flock together
Though the murky waters of your creeks flow
Submerged in own oil films still
Though these sad tenures tarry
Laugh Niger Delta - you must - one day
Now, cry if you can, nothing balms better
The oppressors pains
But you must sleep no more
Your crude has murdered sleep!