As the bells jingle,

Calling to life the harmattan haze,

The harbinger of a re-born year,

Your hope of answering the ultimate call

Brightens like morning after the dawn

As the seconds tick by

One thinks with your gnarled horns

You could raise a standard

Against determined pogrom.

I tried in vain to part ways

With the notion that your frantic scratch

On the ground could instigate blood

But the more I listen

The less convinced I become

That your hoax baritone

Could but leave a scratch

On the stubborn walls of Jericho

In spite of the unequal battle

Of hide against unrelenting razor;

In spite of the sheer size of oscillating scrotum

In a show of stubborn defiance

And in spite of an asphyxiating economic malaise

On the door of every homestead,

The knife must surely descend,

To separate cartillage from bones.

For what does it profit a man

To guzzle a mountain of rice

To which on a Christmas day

You have failed to pay an eternal homage?

Tell them when you meet

On the other side of the divide

That you have only kept an age-long tradition.

But if I may ask:

Can you ever be trusted

To pull down the stout flag of tradition?

Behold, your race looks longingly unto you