Hard times hit with a loud bam,

Harried folks, not unlike a flotsam,

Swarm old Britannia’s grey shores

Other kinsfolk, scores upon scores,

Dark, rough-hewn, bid for Europe

They wager princely sums of the Euro

All in hopes of an El Dorado berth

Then they, by some austere footpath,

Trek across hot sands and cold trails,

Risking a vast desert imperium’s jails

Then huddled aboard a forlorn craft,

Our kinsfolk: packed from fore to aft

A little reminiscent of the enchained

Ancestors, who, in anguish, endured,

A passage to centuries-long servitude,

But alas, our kinsfolk bear with fortitude

Such choice as upon a free will settled

Not unlike a jetsam, they are storm-tossed,

Ahoy! A festering bedlam of rasping voices

Afloat. Bobbing. Up. Down. Rasping voices!

Tempting fate with a forlorn hope, literally!

If not doomed our kinsfolk, on Italia’s littoral,

Would be ready hands for a tomato crop!

Or, intercepted, be corralled into a coop.

By Roland Akosah