In remembrance of Ken Saro-Wiwa and those who died with him*
They had waited two days
All nine of them
While the scaffold was built.
The sounds of sawing
Chanting their pre-ordained guilt
“Build it stout,” the court had said,
“Nine men need hanging
Nine men need hanging.”
I
They brought Saro-Wiwa forward
He would be first.
They put the rope around his neck.
The sun melted into his onyx eyes.
They pulled the lever.
“Nine men need hanging
Nine men need hanging.”
II
They found and fixed the fault
They put the noose around his neck again.
Toxic trees wept in barren farmlands.
And pulled the lever.
“Nine men need hanging
Nine men need hanging.”
III
They took it to pieces
And put it back again
Put the noose
Around his neck
Again
And, while poisoned air sucked
Life from dying children,
They pulled the lever.
“Nine men need hanging.
Nine men need hanging.”
IV
The engineers who built it
Adjusted things so expertly.
Now it would work.
They put the noose around
Saro-Wiwa’s neck and,
Filth weeping into poisoned rivers,
They pulled the lever.
“Nine men need hanging
Nine men need hanging.”
V
“Lord, take my soul”
Breathed Saro-Wiwa
The first of the nine.
“Take me,
I am ready.
Take my soul.”
They put the noose
Around his neck.
He dreamed Ogoni one last time.
They pulled the lever.
Eight men need hanging.
*Ken Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian writer who campaigned non-violently for the survival of the Ogoni people whose land was ravaged by the Shell Oil Company in crude oil extraction. Targeted by successively brutal Nigerian regimes he was sentenced to death in a mockery of a trail, along with eight others. They were hanged in Port Harcourt on 10 November 1995. Saro-Wiwa was nominated posthumously for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996.