Language is a figure of speech

IX

Never talk of right and wrong to me

Nor of left and right when I'm near.

We stand

On a facet of iceberg

Left is not right

Our heads pierce up

And our feet nail us down

Spectacles can't make us see

Down below is quite tartarin

What shall we name

What we cannot see or know?

X

The hand had five fingers

And they were equally short

But one finger out of spite

Decided to add an inch

To raise him above Dickenharry

The others, out of aggrandisement

Imitated likewise

The competition

No sooner begun

Than ever will end

One finger added more breadth

Than height and another

Shrunk out of size

In order to show them

What can be achieved

With a little trying.

XI

This hunter was my neighbor

One day he went to wash in the river

While he was putting his trousers on

He failed to balance steadily

On the right foot

And the left foot muffled by the trouser leg

Stumbled into the muddy water

Realising that the trousers 

Had not drunk water for a long time

And therefore were naturally thirsty

He told them to drink away

To their heart content

With this resolution made

My hunter friend sat down in the muddy water

Whereupon the trousers were mightily glad

And drank water to saturation

By Taban Lo Liyong
- A Selection of African Poetry (Revised and enlarged edition), Introduced and annotated by K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent, Longman Group Limited, 1976