This country is a poem
Is only for the heart to lie
To make Art no die
This country, no be place
For human faces
To live to love this country
Na just like space
For all of us to dey die
My heart no go greee mek Art dey lie
This country is not a poem
The way they make poetry
To make this country
Sound good to the ear
But here who cares
The death of a dirty lie on the lips
Before the words dried out to die
This country
Who cares
For the poetry of our existence
The way they care for poetry
Leaving us every moment with metaphors
To feel not at all the failing of poetry
This country
Dare you to ask
"Have you seen dead bodies before?"
Answer with another ask
"Are there not dead bodies everywhere?"
Stuff enough to make more poems
Who cares to hear
Lagos is a poem, not a place
Ajegunle is a poem, not a place
Cannot sit to hear this poem
SUNG in Yoruba:
Kile ni wa gbo
Kile ni wa wo
Ara mo ri ri
Kilo oju ori leko ri
Kile ni wa gbo
Kile ni wa wo
...
For a people mugged down in mud
Every breath a struggle to keep
The breath like that of animals
Humans lost all life...like Hannibal
Desecrate the place unfit for Villa and Zapata
Hang the statue in the square
This is the sad end of Saddam's story
Still alive savouring life on
Like Bush the liar unable to Blair
The people not to see their land
Their oil still flowing into wrong pockets
Guns boomed, they die to be able to kill
My heart is pained say no be dem
But the innocent young ones of mothers
Like our own mothers
Cut down to weep dry tears
For lost sons
This is the common end of hope
Stringed on the guns of another
From across the borderline
Who also like them heed only onto profit
From our dying
If then we free to fight
This country into a poem
Art first must be rid of lies
For only then can hearts crave to die
For the people
For a new poem
For a new country
Not this stiff old song of profit
Making this country is not a poem
This country is a poem
Is only for the heart to lie
To make Art no die
This country, no be place
For human faces
To live to love This country
Na just like space
For all of us to dey die
My heart no go greee make Art dey lie
This country is not a poem
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