Cries From the River Nun

A glib giant of the river borders The discerning ears of the ancient Power, we mourn Where caravans cascade to unseen voices And the rumbling of avalanche bullets invades our peace This mind captured it with a piercing eye From river “Nun” ere wasting wore garbs of gloom this savage brandishing of the source of livelihood Wiwa's blood spills, as the Khaki boys obeyed their paymaster Profligate bands in union vexed by demons hunt sane men "like partridges" With arms, murderous Pirates just for greed offers bullets as our prize Subdued our river for gain never known. Ruined face-stretching pains like coverless carpet A reservoir of floods tumbles through the eye gates, Our rich resources ploughed by strangers, Where is Royal Dutch Shell? or Schlumberger, where is Chevron, Total when we are hungry, when we die, of pollution, where is Petrobras, Equinor or Agip when we mourn the damage on our offspring we are silenced by the tyrants in Aso. Insipid insanity of blood brothers ignored safety Our tyrants cared for the gains and for gains, Wiwa was murdered, And a Massacre in Odi Kill them all, says the goggled tyrant, Take the gains to Zurich, I will spend it tomorrow, but like Mobutu, he never lived to count the cash For their greed, we die. As these Lords watch the drama, smiling at our folly From the coast of ivory, where children groan in pain for jewels to war-ravaged Sudan, famished by the same burden and like Esau, we trade the future for ephemeral And obliterating while reenacting the trade of yore unending wars for greed, a blinding greed Who will save these captives from the taskmasters? Cocoa harvested in Ghana, Indonesia et al, yet not a chocolate plant but this coffee is not from Ghana, the Chocolate bar is sent back at the dollar price Nigeria is rich with crude Yet they meander around a refinery from far off climes Congo is ravaged in war, who supplies the arm? Oh! for a taste of Freedom