African Mis-Culture Worm

Freedom asserted, freedom elevated At the price of abandoning trivia Jettisoning frills in the context of flights coveted When whites and nights turn cold and Sylvia Despite her brown complexion tolerates ebony skin Rating it high, far above the artificial allure Derived from immersion in complexion creams locked up in a bin Sylvia suggests promotes the lure Freedom denies to plastic surgery That disfigures natural beauty ensnaring it into a belief That brown skin defeats dark skin although beauty forgery Elevates creepy kingship of mischief Meant to deny dark beauty its place under the sun Where African men and women turn away from their nature To adopt and coopt artificial beauty not just for fun But also for keeps and the contemporary culture That invades and pervades Africa from rejection of traditional meals Traditional attire, primacy of the mother tongue To the adoption of intrusive Western languages and frills Which rob Africans of their identity and slang Until Africans know not where they belong Being neither fully westernized nor fully Africanized Like when expectant mothers deem it wrong to don oblong Maternity dresses in favour of balkanized Fashion whose promotion and commotion don’t augur Well for the short term, midterm and long term Plunging Africans into a perennial quandary and conundrum which figure High among inconsistencies that squirm in an African misculture worm.