Poem: Despised Pearl (August 14, ’08 Relinquish)
By Mathew Takwi
When the Eighties turned Nineties
A gem glimpsed, cat’s droppings
Spited perhaps for Shakespeare’s Saliva
Till neighbours gigantic grotesque arm whisked
For import of its fish port and soil pot recognised
And real lion out of its den in quick fence hemmed:
Challenge!
Standing dared,
Against sweeping hurricane of Glasnost and Perestroika
Whirling from Far East to Central African sub-soil
Wheeling and curling around neighbours’ stead
Island of peace she prided self in momentary extrication
And like exploding bomb, democratic storm stormed
The turbulent silent Triangular State
As though salt in sauce insufficient
Neglected wealthy patch of Triangle in astute barricade buckled
A 1993 envious wrong grab of black gold well
By Goliath Naira neighbour
Planting laws and flying lag
Directing and taxing, masking and fathering other’s home
Quaking solemn sound sleep of Francs palace
Trigger at trigger, oxygen rumbled, stumbled and tumbled
Till ICJ* trimmed and tailored in eight years
God-given green green ‘nkeng’ here floated in neglect
Then Dollar Green Tree Accord planted
To grow green, green and green
Not the William Carlos Williams Christmas green
Whose time past, pulled down and flung to the fire
But today, harmony’s ceaseless restored: Calabar Release
Rejected stone emerges corner diamond of renewed state
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