POEM: CAN WE?

photo by Alex Lear

CAN WE?

(for Ken Saro Wiwa)

suppose

the thot

/police

took our words

seriously

treated us like the real po-po:

cut us down

on suspicion

of being

dangerous, just in case

we actually

are serious

some of us forget

ken’s killers

were the folk

who threw fela’s mother

out the window

a little while ago

i took a hot shower

was ken able to wash

before the hanging?

everybody be talking abt

the morning after

what abt

the night before

any thots

on that?

when i look into the mirror

of my life

experiences

do i see anything

that would lead me to believe

that i would be willing

to die for my beliefs?

suppose

you had to take full

responsibility

for every word

you uttered

no matter how little

you meant it

“really, i was just joking around

i didn’t mean to tell the truth”

can we

afford

not to be

serious?

can we?

can we be

like ken

saro wiwa was

strong

straight up

‘til

the end?

—kalamu ya salaam

2 responses

....really like your poem: We Can? (for Ken Saro Wiwa)
Oil in the Niger Delta region equates to the doom of a people such as the Ogoni, Igbo, Urhobo ethic groups...I like the Ogoni people and there is a reason that Oil has been describe as "the Devil's excrement"....
What has occurred in the Niger Delta is often compared to the Gulf of Mexico's Deepwater oil explosion in 2010 and the US media really played it up with footage of crude oil washed up on US shores...The point I'm trying to make is that what the southern US states experienced was nothing to the damage in Nigeria's Niger Delta regions...
They hanged him Ken Saro Wiwa in 1995 the voice of the Delta region was constantly haunted by the Po/Po....Ken was a thorn in the side of the military government and they had to kill him...just think about it the misguided choice of (enemies) If you have a choice which enemy should you do in first? Ken knew the intentions on the oil Multi nationals and whenever he spoke out the Po/Po was a constant bedfellow, monitoring, spying, call it what you want...Ken Saro Wiwa chose his enemies well, they were the Oil barons and Lap dogs that follow behind them...they are the enemies that not only use the great wealth derived from the subjection to sustain the system that oppress and kill us, they also used the ill begotten wealth to pay the local Po/Po and our own people to betray us....
Now let's make one thing clear the above statement in no way should be read to absorb traitorous or (misguided) Africans of guilt, and don't get overtly bogged down on what they have done because we have to still concentrate on the primary enemy ....anybody that gets side tracked by these traitors and focuses their attention on them is either a fool, misguided himself, a crazy African, who is still filled with the poison of self -hate and if that dosen't work I personally suggest that you go out to the Niger Delta with the biggest glass you can find and drink one glass of crude oil on me, if that dosen't clean your mind or consciousness as to who the primary enemy is than nothing will...Ken Saro Wiwa still lives

— Edwin S Wilson

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