poème

(After Pablo Neruda’s The United Fruit Co.)

When the flares had come
And dis-united the day from the night
The surface of the earth was united in a dance
As Jehovah set the boundaries of the nations
And snakes bedevilled the apples
And Eve, poor Eve was told…if
You take and if you eat of these fruits
You will see only day and no nights !
And so it was that Shell, Exxon-Mobil, Texaco, NNPC,
Elf, Chevron, Agip, Statoil and similar entities agreed
That the most desired entity of all
The United Niger Delta Oil Compagny incorporated
Opened its claws and rigs and climbed broad platforms
Shared and divided the land and the sea
Took the entire coasts of our country
Loving best the heart beating in her waist : the delta
They re-christened their property
The savaged land of the uncontracted
The savage land of the blind
The savage land of the powerless saboteurs
The snakes bedevilled the apples
And Adma, adamant to the sneer in her eyes
Was glad to grab power and raise the vulture as an insignia
While the dead swung from lampposts
Under the canopies of smoke from Lucifer’s chimney stacks
Daily the bell tolls over the languishing dead
In the heat of the unresting dead
In unmarked mass graves
Now the United Niger Oil Compagny incorporated
Squints at the uneasy economy thought so brilliant
Since nature abhors a vacuum
Now do we apply the ultimate solution ?
The tapster tapped the palm to death
Today the earth is caught in an unending death song
The flutes dead on the lips of the dying minstrels
Who died wondering why they ever wondered whether
These entities could blatantly change the weather
Yes, since nature rejects a vacuum
We ill suck crude from the belly of the earth
Yes, since nature rejects a vacuum
We will pump blood into the belly of the earth
We hear the song of the ancient songster
The lament of the silent drums
The cackle of the stifled rattle
What are you gonna do when the blood runs dry ?
What are you gonna do when the dying are all dead ?
Today the crowns rise with swelling sea shores
Today the accounts swell as the bloodtides swell
The butterflies point accusing antennas at the ponds of their spills
And, as Aart would ask, could there be sweet nectar in the bitter crude ?
Or is this the pull of the endless tears of the restless dead ?
We somehow know there is one butterfly for each kind of spill yet
Only one for the springs that quench our thirst and bless our farms
And we search without end for that solitary butterfly
Now our loving United Niger Delta Oil Compagny incorporated
Has established an opera of buffoonery
Stabbing the land with laurels like her imperial majesty
Playing tuns with skullerships and roofless sheds
To cover the covetous and tyrannical reign of the rigs
To seal the croaks from our parched throats
Yesterday we saw a mountain of butterflies dead
Drunk with the blood of our feet
Today we hear their drones like lunatic bees
We see ferric derricks screw deep into our veins and
The United Niger Delta Oil Compagny incorporated
Keeps sailing off with its booty of dollars, greed and crude
Rejoicing with the junta with the spoils of war
From last days of their drowning dominions
And as always somewhere on the oilrigs, in the creeks and mangroves
Of the hell of this national enterprise
Bellies burst as pipe burst
Hellish flares melt gasping throats
And thousands of the living dead fall
Into a thousand gaping holes in the centres of their yards
Nobodies and somebodies swing from the pendulums of the rigs
Falling… falling… falling… falling into anonymous graves
And silent mournig in desolate mornings
Somewhere the boats land with their loot
The United Oil Compagny gives no hoot
Log as their vat is laden with cash
When the flare had come
And dis-united the day from the night
The surface of the earth was united in a dance
As Jehovah set the boundaries of the nations and
The snakes bedevilled the apples
And Eve, poor Eve was told… if…Ìf you take and if you eat of these fruits
You will see only days and no nights !
And true to their lies there had been no day since…

Nnimmo Bassey, We thought it was oil but it was blood, Ibadan, Kraft Books Limited, 2002, p. 22-24.