A Dogface Commemoration Poem by BELLO BIDEMI

Army of choppers on red sky hive

As turns of bullets on black casques dive

Grey and blue, cover run so we set

Creeping windswept moor, land mines at test yet

Boom! and boom! tens and hundreds return dear breath

Heaving hope at life's gentle death

Heaven we come of hell this such

Casualties of sort we bear this much

In trenches and shrubs, hay we cease not hit

Home, a verily mirage in dream deeply lit

Rifles, grenades, missiles... our orchestra so in play

Music etch emitting we gyrate thus all day

Barbs, cadavers in pools we crept, bloody was bloodshed

Treat this ilk unworthy for he be living or dead

Despite, war planes and tanks we did dare

Our staunch gallantry the bastards shirked to bear

At times doleful faces made well to shed

But ousting harm's way, we killed and never fled

Grisly fierceness hunger knew not nor thirst

As forsooth, goal in course surely plunges first

Combat valour prowess... our veins loosely ran

Ringing attest a noble strain o proudly african

Africa! glory we breathe at the tambour strike of bam!

Abode forests revive from sonority of the tam-tam

For good we stood, for justice and for France

Triumph's menace's when true men fall so to trance

O ye rise, applaud our heroic exploitation!

November 11 this day, the epic commemoration

©

In honour of black troops in the world wars; Les tire ailleurs Sénégalaises.