Poetry: Canada, by Prof Chris Anyokwu

Canada! Canada! Canada! Oh,Canada! They say you’re heaven to which hell’s captives run,they say your streets are paved with gold, broad way of the footloose…

Canada! Canada! Canada! Oh, Canada!
London is aghast
Paris pales with pain
And New York can’t stand your hypnotic face!
What! London Bridge hasn’t fallen down,
and folk still see Paris and live and Neeeeew Yooooork, bouncing castle of hip-hopping Yankees still magnets the world.

And, now… Canada?
Foreigners cover castles of excreta with maple leaves to pick your juicy udala! Here, hell’s inhabitants flee hell-holes and desert in droves their shit-holes:
Classrooms lose their tongues in hushed cobwebs, boardrooms their strategic gambits to the Toronto train and hearths are broken by cold ash.

All cry: Give me Canada or I die! Give me its chains and pains! Better to slave in its cold bliss than to reign in hell’s convivial hunger.

Son holds gun to Dad’s head,wife shreds wedding vows and husband dreams oyibo wife as lottery of escape.

Everyone sells everyone else for a one-way ticket to heaven:

Canada! Canada! Canada! Oh, Canada!
My people flee into your cold heart leaving behind a warm welcoming home.

@ Chris Anyokwu
Dept of English, University of Lagos (UNILAG)
October 16, 2024