To all Shesans
By Tikum Mbah Azonga
I saw Song today
I don`t mean, Daniel
No, I`m talking about Rigobert
So, it`s not the journalist
It`s the footballer.
I saw the football king today
It was in Bassaland
His nativeland, where his navel was buried
Like that of Roger Milla
I saw him in Sanaga Maritime Division
Along the Yaounde-Douala highway
As we drove to Douala
Song was smiling broadly
From ear to ear
Beaming
On a roadside poster.
He wore his legendary dreadlocks
Like a man who had just been told
He had been admitted into heaven
With the privilege of getting there
Without having to die first
Yes, more or less like Tony Banks
When he learned Tony Blair
Leader of the just come back New Labour
Had appointed him Sports Minister.
You ask why I call Song Rigobert
`The Football King`
You want to know why not Eto`o
Or Milla
Or Pele
And you say if Song is good
I could call him something else
Not the King
Well, of all the above
Song is the tallest and the most stout and the most handsome
He looks like a swash buckling soldier
So he can defend you against any enemy
Even Idi Amin, if he were to return.
Song is a Foot king in his own right
If you`re still doubting
Remember that those others are kings
Only because they shone as part of a team.
Thrust into the football pitch alone
All, all alone
Like the lone mariner on the high seas
They would not play
There would be none to play with
And none to play against
Worse still, there would be no linesman
No referee
No match delegate
No spectator
So even as the greatest world kings
They would be null and void
Nought
Zero
Toothless dogs.
They would lose the match
And lose woefully
Not through forfeiture
But through an unscorred lone goal.
And wouldn`t that be a shame!
copyright 2009
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4 commentaires:
Is this a satire or an appreciation to cameroon footballers?.
BELA ASUMPTA
It`s both, actually. It`s all about the poet letting his imagination run wild. And that`s what poetry is all about: freedom, freedom and freedom. If you like, it`s literary democracy.
TMA
Fine this poem as you say is both a satire and an appreciation but what image is being portrayed of greater icons like etoo,roger milla rather than song whose fame is not as great as the latter.
I think one interpretation is that everyone is a kind in his or her own domain, so in consonance with the expression that `an Englishman`s home is his castle.` The three players, Milla, Eto`o and Song can be separated relatively conveniently.
Whereas Milla and Eto`o are attackers and top scorers, Song is a defender. So whereas he is a defence king, the other two are attack kings.
Regarding Milla and Eto`o more specifically, it would seem to me that Eto`o, by the end of his football career, is bound to have scored many more goals than Milla did in his own career. Another factor in Eto`o`s favour is that he is still young and so can go on and on for many more years.
TMA
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