Skip to main content

The Boys And The Bomb- World War 3, Here We Come By Niyi Osundare

September 20, 2017

(In the background, this song, threnodically:


An fo’ye l’oju

An min Janduku j’oye

An fo’ye l’oju*)

 

Grand World War, here we come

   From a cannibal asylum to a fatal farce

The Big One is coming, Apocalypse of Ashes

    The world we know is tottering on the brink

 

Two Boy-Kings with clownish heads

     Both loud-mouthed and supremely insane

So many nuclear toys under their sick, intemperate command

     They boast and bluff and provoke a blast

 

“You have no place in our Nuclear Club”,

     The bigger Boy tells the younger one“

“Destroy your toys and invite my gang

      To come to your house and inspect your forge”

 

 

“But your land is full of the lethal stuff,

     Your land and those of all your friends

What is good for one Gangster is good for another

     You look too dirty to be Mr. Clean”

 

“I will vaporize your country within a second”,

     The Bigger Boy shouts like one possessed

“Try it, old Braggart, try it fast

     You will know the towering tree never falls alone”

 

 

And so, war drums and drums of war

     A new mad Emperor in the Western realms

Who tweets and tattles before he thinks

     And takes the bomb as a trendy toy

 

 

Open your eyes, Peoples of the World

     Light your future with a lamp from your past

The clouds now gathering in the seething sky

     Will drown us all if we fail to kick

 

------------------------------

 

*They  blinded the world

They put a crook on the throne

They have blinded the world

Topics
POETRY