Song of Saro-Wiwa is an epic poem written to be read aloud, performed or enjoyed in different moods. Quite long, here is one of the subsequels. You can read all at www.emergingicons..com. Enjoy!

*

The young boys

In their puberty spree;

The young boys

Whose seams

Are red hot

With the blood of our fathers

In the shuttle:

They abandon school

They say,

They do not know why

They ever created a thing like school

What is the meaning?

What is the gain?

You only go there

To receive canes!

When you speak in your mother’s tongue

They bark like dogs

At you

When you speak in your mother’s tongue

They scream and shout

They bark at you

They say

Your mother did not know

How to read and write

She did not know

Where the letter A

Should face

She was a stark illiterate,

A goat!



When your brother

In the classroom

Turns to you

In discussion

And you set out

In your native dialect:



Bros

That thing

Weh she talk

No enter my head O!



Shu

E be like say

She no wan

Make we sabi am

At all at all

Make she stop

To dey talk

For this language na



Shu

We never reach

That levels na



If to say

She dey yan

For we language

For pidgin

Check am na

Abi?



If to say

She dey flow

For we tongue like this

This thing

Weh she dey yan since

For just dey enter

For just dey flow

For we brain na



Oboy ye

E for just dey flow

For we inside

Like we oil o

Abi how you see an?

Abi no be so?





When you speak in vernacular

In your own native

When you speak Africa

They say it is jargon

It is a strange language

Prohibited in schools–





Thirty-two hard strokes

Of the cane

On your bare buttocks!



When you fail

To put a sum right

And you cannot try further

Because hunger sucks

Because hunger pricks you,

The teacher says

You are a block-head,

An idiot,

The animal!

And twelve strokes

Of koboko

On your bare buttocks!



The young boys blab

They say:

To hell

With school,

To hell

Even with its teachers;

Those monsters

To hell with them,



We shall be farmers;

We shall be sea lords;

And we shall be rich

We shall not want

To hell with school

And its teachers



Brother mine,

Do you remember it at all!



*



My people, consider

One more time,

Consider

Those jostling moments,

Those silver mornings

With the fishes

And other sea combatants:

Crabs, prawns, bull-headed gulls

And the harvests!



*

When at dusk

When the wind

Frothing around the coasts

Rises and begins to stroll

Softly and lightly

Across the face of the sea

So pleasant, so peaceful

And the sea gulls

Majestically gallop

Amidst the waters

The prideful rivers of my people



Calmly and stealthily

Like a mid-night wind

Sneaking through the tattered ears

Of my wrinkled curtains

Emerging in my room

And over my corpse

Stretched, blowing away

The fumes;

Like a deformed lily

Drifting the whole sea

In search of its lost stump



So calmly, so softly

In your raft

You ferry here and there

And shatter your traps

Sprinkle and fling,



You fling a trap

Far to the left

Then the right

Then behind

Then in front

So that

You drag out the yoke

Of our river

Like a Crane

Offloading

A large cargo at the port



*

And when you have returned

All stretched across the mat

Like fish dried up in the rack,

Your heart begins to linger

And your mind follows

Then you begin to count

The number of hooks

In the traps

Then you begin to count

The cells in the traps

And in your frozen desire

You measure all fish

In the river basin

Matching them with the holes

In your bat-wings

Spread over the sea!



And you imagine

That, only so near

Just at dawn

These aimless creatures

Shall decorate

And answer a call

Under your traps

And you alone

Shall bear the single name

The single hailing

Of emptying the contents

Of a river!



*

And,

With the blast

Of the first cow-horn

Resonating, faintly

Stretching far and wide

Like the voice of the gong;

Through the mysterious fluting

Of the crowing cock;

Through the frozen ears

Of the new-comer

Ascending in heavenly gallantry

On the wings

Of the frothed morning dew



And firstling any creatures

You hasten quickly

And swiftly

Like a wheel

Newly oiled

Rolling down a slope

Swiftly as if you alone

Drift that river!

You hasten down the beach

Stampeding drastically

Across the shingles




And in your stretcher

You dive into the vast sea

And begin to drift

First to the left

Then the right

Then behind

Then in front

And soon you return

And the entire beach

Rises for you



O Brother Mine,

Do you remember

The entire homesteads

And neighbouring villages

Wail your praise!



Then your name

Spins among the people

Like the whirlwind

In the reign of harmattan

Then your name

Evokes sweet songs

Upon the lips of your people

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