"World Cup Runneth Over"

"30 poems in 30 days" is a challenge, not a contest, presented to the few willing to take it upon their duties to create in anyway way, shape, or form, with no strenuous, strict rules, starting December 15th, 2009, and ending January 13th, 2010.


#20 of 30


"N'kosi Sikelel' iAfrika"

A toast!
Heineken and Michelob aroma pours along the veins of her
Datsun and Peugeot smoke racing through
Naija's dark roads
That's not a glitch, it's another outstanding outage
That's black power...or lack there of
Or an ox-hauled oxymoron
De Beers and Jacob's congratulates in hand claps
Louder than the rocks falling
And the pick-ax clanging
For their work in the Congolese cradle
Verwoerd and Meadowlands invite the souls
Of the Xhosa tongued seeds back from their forever slumber
To crawl on their land
Renamed for their conquerors
Roadmarked with bullets and bones

Yachts, slave ships, cruise liners and tankers sing in unison...

In Dutch
In Ye Olde English
In 'Vichy' French
And louder in Portuguese
To drown out the pollution-mutated wailings of

Somali fishermen and their pirate fathers
To the beat of the clink-clank of

Dragging feet and hand bonding chains

Mutilated and muted from the yell of a war cry
To write another hymnal in Christian Lay
Taking pictures of their past workers and once-owned property
Why be like Mike, when you could be like
Taylor or Idi Amin
They once had idols...or something like that
Called
European influence
How else can you explain
The Congolese and Sudanese taking flight
Becoming Twitter fans of twitching dead bodies

Exile from Theirspace, into Ourspace

From what they called "Myspace"
On Facebook with lacerated faces
Armed with G20 and G8
And aid packages that come from the metallic sky god
With grey arms and spinning wings
With a UN birthmark

We don't need no water, let Rwanda - Burundi burn

Says Reno

My kingdom come
Thy work be undone
On Mother Africa
As it is in hell
Over here.

"N'kosi Sikelel' iAfrika"

Ifeanyi Okoro II © 2010