The Lost Art

I read you Fathers
in the mute of night
When the bones decay in the yard of grave.
I read you Fathers
in the shadow deep
of the blooming moon
a most solemn tune.
What seek I?
Gong You did strike!
The ancient rhyme
I seek rhythm to this discordant medley churning my inside.
I am your offspring
show me the path of destiny
Many have forsaken it
and the less-severe roads have taken
for it is a time of blasphemy.
What seek I? That cord of life to balance the rife in remedy.
I pained for the dead days,    for the lost ways
So I read you to bring back The Road Map.

GODDESS

Acolyte!
what do you know?
what have you learned of me?

I know

some mantra

seen hypnotised dancers
maidens in dans-macabre

thy famed ire

irked mien

fearsome den

a dripping dread...
And thy haughty head.

Acolyte!
what do you see?
what do you know of me?

snake dances
blood sacrifices
consequences
vengeances
nemeses...

I see
Thy Kali arms
a fetish charm
a trident spear
a cold calmness.
And souls you possess.

Acolyte!...?

O goddess!

I only see
what you revealed to me...a blade and a beauty.

Yet
behind this facade
of thy wrath ironclad

thy bloodied tongue and lips

In the swaying hips
of thy temple troupe
coquette posture
begging attention
un-curtailed lust -

Is much love fiercely masked.

Dàwarà II

Dàwarà

when again
shall I bath
in warm embrace
of her watery arms?

Once again
I want to play
bojú-bojú and chase
within thy lazy waters

with what shall I compare
the taste of her?

the flavor

of

Her spices, her juices
corn, smoke, air
dung, drum ... and waters.

We drank
milk of thy trees
coco trees

we picked
giant snails
in cool places
by the dunghill

we slipped
on feaces
and wiped
our feet with banana leaves


we killed
many snakes
on our portion

we played
mischievously
with girls
on mooned night gatherings

things boyish, coyish...

we swam in
Odo-oba

coursed the river
on banana rafts and bamboo oars

drank from cool dàwarà

we scooped her waters
with our cupped hands!

when, mother
shall I be a man proper? 

HAIKU



O lemon, rotting
away in the basin, Where's
thy Lemonade?

TO THE MUM I LOST

She came in my dreams
In her usual self
Petit and slim;

I was a wanderer
still I am
I had no one, no where
To sleep at night

No food
No cloths
No good
In my soul...yet,
She took me in...

I was wrong, mother
I never understand
That I have no father
To hold my youthful hand

I left
In a fit of pride
pitched with strangers...
And had my rewards
lost beyond the prodigal return.

The gains of my foolery
Still they follow me
I'm a vagabond still
Orphaned and ripped

So, she came in my dreams
Not to mock my estate

But with tears in her eyes
(Just as the day I did depart)

talked with me
prayed for me...
How I wish
It were real

She touched my hand
I've forgotten to laugh
Could only spare a smile...
And while we part'
I weep in my sleep.

I AM-



I am one of those
Who have grasp the scope
Of life as a slope

which sometimes is just gentle
and some other time's so steep
when it won't be right to creep

then, one needs a rope. 

DÀWARÀ

Dry is the beck
that course this vale

And now I trek
a once wet plain

Where is the groove
of thy deity?

'As Ògún fled
his den shanty?

Riddle! Mother's Dàwarà ! am puzzled!
- for cock now chase the fox - still you lie in sleepiness

As troubled as harmless
clueless
hapless
an ox
tail-less.

AS THE CROW FLIES



As the crow flies...

No more in a straight file
The ideals of life
Are fraught with lies

No stars
In the sky
Nor inside your eyes...

No life
Where lies thrive
As the sunrise

No rain
For the famished earth
Nor our fainting heart

No way
In this path
Of dead rats

Where...

A slither
An Asp
In the gutter

In the dark
Our back
Striked!

RAVENS

(For a 20 year old man, Emmanuel Victor; on october 16 was brutally murdered by a group of policemen @ a checkpoint in Yenegoa, Bayelsa state.)



It's wise I say
If we be more afraid
Of men guarding the highway
Than the highway men.

He was just a boy
- do they thought as much?
He seem to them a toy-
On his way home from church

Some snides like 'don't you have a church?
Why collecting bribe as such?...' and that's all
were good enough
For guns to pop;

They dropped the man
Though he ran

They dropped the boy
Though his mother cried

They dropped the child
Though civillians spied...

His bible, shirt and shoes
simply vamoosed!

And in their stead
A scissors and a story;
He disarmed and harmed two mobile police'...
Moreso
He smokes Cannabis!

God help Themis
While administering Justice
blindfolded like this
With false balances
And a sword
blunt enough
To cut
Just the poor.

WE SHOULD BE IN THE RAIN



We should be in the rain
Playing dirt'
Laughing
with some mud-splashing.

We should be in the rain
Dripping wet
Running with the wind flitting.

We should be in the rain
Pouring yet
Singing with the sky crying.

We would be in the rain
If you let
us go in
O grown-up me!

We would be - once again -
That boy blest
Breaking free from boring thee.

We would be without pain
In our chest
A child's heart
In adult head.


LIGHTS

Lights in the distance
break...

Puffy clouds stand askance,
grey

ones take their chance
say;

this day we dance
away

As if in a trance
an eagle
for once
flees the heights

shuddering at the sounds

up there rebound

A broken staff
down
charred

Like Aaron's
buds buds
blossoms blossoms
yielding Almonds...

The day tapers
cutting it best capers
and cheers awaits

Night rapier
Aims it bowel
eviscirates...

But ere she reigns
this sky will rain...

To ease the day
that has been so brave.

CELLS

Wasp above
Weaves it home

Asp and moles
'Bode in holes

Where will man
Bide his time

When his clan
Sings his prime?

In a hollow darkeness?

In an empty space?

In slimy slippery?

A simple touch await?

In a slumber?

In a trance?

With some canker

...in some dance?

What will he do
When death he's undone?

Where will be his hood
When sets his bright sun?

In the bottomless pit?
Falling ceaselessly?
With the fallen angels?
For a thousand years?

In some sulphur fueled flare?
For ever?
Will satan be there?
Fuelling the fire?

In a peaceful, pleasant place?
Where the wild is tamed?
No night nor pain?
Nor dying again...?

Clouds in shades
Guide my way
To heaven

Not to hades
Where the 'bold
And able'...haven.

Let my grave
Be void of bones
No filth to hold

This engrave
On my tombstone;
'His death is gold'

Haiku...(2)

Susurrus symphonies

the night governing

are rats', bats'... and roaches'

Haiku...

Homing bats

- in reinless flight-

dapple the gloaming sky.

MY MECHANIC DAD

My mechanic dad
Bright and hard
Is frugal
With his smiles

Do you know why?
'This life is pied'
He use to say
'A black and white-
And strait the way-
To that bright side
With rough a ride'


What I got from that
Is life is bad
But glee as lark
To those as hard

So I pray
To God for luck
To grace my way
Or else I stuck

For though
My mechanic dad
Sure can revive
Dead or Old
German drive

Still
My mechanic dad
Only manage to improvise
Measly fare
-From fixing gears
Wheels and crank shafts, knocked
Engines sometimes-

Enough to feed himself
Wife
Children

And
The rest...
God fixes.

THE WHIRLPOOL

Proceeds of hell in a gyre
Pluto himself at the center

Many are thrust into the flood
More to pay the cost
Which is blood

-Butts touching noses of bending Moses...
Heads bowed, Submitting wills and consciences-

Seared Hearts, twice dead...lighting pyres.

MANU

You came
I saw
What could be seen

They should have seen
The beauty in thee!
Or were blind to it?

You would see
The black shock of locks
Rounding up his temple

His goodly form
Plump and gentle

Life evermore
In the twitching of his jaw

The fight in his eyes
To come out of it all
Though torched...unscathed, unbroken.

You wouldn't have opened thy maw

O Hades!


If...only if you'd seen all that

For suddenly!
You snapped him up!

Pluto plucked up my buddy

My only Morénikéjì!

Yet I have questions
O Hades?
Hear me Pluto...

Did you come for him
Or was he sent to thee?

Did he leave us...me voluntarily
Or was he chased abroad to thee?

What pessimism?
His Austism
Made him a victim?

Please Pluto...answer me...

A PORTRAIT OF YOU

I can't afford a picture
So I borrowed words pure
From a medieval muse
To brush a phantom like you...

Footfalls in the dark
Make me glance back
Or is it my heart
That thumps like that?

Throbbing in my spirit
A rapturous verdict
Some kind of possessing
Rabid and consuming...

Your face is the moon
As lucid as cool
Your eyes are so true
Limpid...to look through

They're the right path
Into your heart
They're the bright light
That chase the night.

You're an evening pleasant
With a sunset brilliant
The sweetest nectar
Of scented flowers

Your crisp tresses
Pitch as raven's
Is filled with flavor
Of sweetly odor

Your lips are crimsoned
Lush, sure and softened
Your teeth and tongue
Are well informed

Your chin as this
Is naught but bliss
And your fragile neck
Is a tender beck

Your chest is blest
Adorn with breasts
So full and firm
My soul they charm!

Your form is goodly
Your person is comely
This belle of my country
Petit, pruned and sultry.

LET THE SUN SPEAK...

Let the sun speak
For the night sleep
-A tipsyied slumber that reek
alcohol- and she snores deep.

Let the sun speak
For our fathers
Have grown too weak
For the rustlers

Supposed shepherds
They feed on the fold
Indiscriminate slaughter
Of the young and the old

Let the sun scorch
The youths rage
Let it rays torch
The iron gate

Enough, enough my peers
Of promises unkept
Enough, enough, I said
Of their thieving theft

Let the sun wreck
The camp of wrongdoers
Who know to deck
in apparel of cruel toga

Let the sun boil
The youth rage
Let their great spoil
Be pillage'

How many more shall be bereft
How many sons shall go hungry
How many parents shall swim in debt
How many daughters shall lose their glory...tell me?

Let the sun speak
To rouse those that sleep
Let it rays strength the weak
Lest we all fall into the deep.

Ojá Alè

From the shadow of a gloom
-where I stood-
Night did blossom, bloom and is full
Then crept up my bosom
With all rigour of her youth
Vanity smiles at human toils
Knowing just how to foil... I watched as
Inert stars try to fight the steely night
Its all futile, futile
As this flickering flare
Gainst the zealous zephyr...of the same night,
Her crisp darkness,
Brittle
Is only broken
by the frequent human
gnomes
and goblin sounds
Beckoning buyers
To their nightly wares.

Tanmóko

Sunset yellow stings my eyes
Some strange orange lit the sky.

Wandering clouds with pseudopods
Form and unform in amoeboids

When these amass a massif
Red rays pass through their crevice'...

Quit the farm, for all is lie.

Omi

Omi
Odòkòtò
Aqua from a hollow

Scooped with ewé kókò
From our oko kòkò...

I drink from that clear source
Pure words for goodly cause

Ain't oní kótokóto.

AFRICA WILL RISE...

From the depth of an abyss
To heights unimagined
From dirts and dunghills
To sitting with princes
From lack and poverty
To much prosperity
From thirst and hunger
To being a giver
From a land of desert deserted
To one of beauty besoughted
From 'rearing' a race
To setting the pace
From an handmaiden barren
To having many children
For all her seeds as scathered
Unto her now are gathered...
Africa will rise and give you glory...O God
And my Nigeria shall be her heartbeats of joy.

RAINDROPS

Cascading tears of heaven
Unto earth is given
Breaking her clogs
Pleasing the gods
With more edibles
Upon their tables...
This same blessing
Of late turned to mourning
When an army of flood hungry
From these tiny tears many
Ate up the whole land
Our feets sink in wet sand...
So today again
As the sky began to bray
And clouds gather to break
The shutters of heaven
For another downpour
The gods dither...
Mouth much prayer
To the maker
For a cup drier.

BOWELS OF HELL

Men robed
In deathly cloack
Painted black
What once is white.
Shaggy bearded
Auto rifles
Ever dreaded
Forging troubles.
These, terror be to the earth
Hell is bereaved when they die.

Ad Infinitum

A dome
Like liver lobes
The globe home
Stretching the farthest I see
Sinking into the vast sea.

Its so good to know
That this old dome
That house the globe
Broad but bounded so
Is not our home.

For I know
This dingied dome
Is one of the minutest
Of his experiments
That an expanse limitless
exists outer here, a space boundless...

Why think as the thoughtless
My life ends here
Alone, cold neath some tombstone
No, now I know its a passage
An escape route out of this dome

Into his abode
Of golden road
The glories untold...
And fancy me
In the presence of his glory
All through eternity

Just fancy fecund me
Painting, singing, poeming... Ad infinitum.

FOR THE FLOOD

A poem for yesterday
And the day before
When the rain was pain
And our hearts were soured
For gargatuan deluge
Has deposed our refuge
Just the day before.

Like molten gold
In furious flow
All elements
In its path smelt
When the flood crept
Much lives were swept.
The heavens howl', scowl' and cried
Our mother cold, scold then shied
So she gave way
For a bad day.

What can I say?
What can I write?
When sorrow still hold the day
And many hearts were contrite

Only I pray
While the bells chime
'Affliction must not rise
The second time'.

And so this day
As the sky smiles
The sun mighty rays
Pluck bright flowers
On the graves of the dead
Sleeping in the river bed.

CONSTERNATION

Dashikied in her drizzle
And gradually getting soused...
This morning
See fledglings
Warm their wings
On her moist skin

This tweeting tribe
Life must have bribe'
For they neither toil nor spin
Nor do they gather into bin
Yet are well fed
In her daily banquet

While beings human
Man and woman
Are anxious, as they think
Of what to eat, what to drink
Wherewithal they'll be clothed
Working,Worrying...
To the very doorstep of grim death.

My Gallery Forest Scenery

Gallery Forest.

Three becks
Three becks swim the three vales
On the way
To my village.
One paths through
Dark neighbourhood
Of the forest evil
Where gnomes dance in
Macabre-dans
We only hear
None goes near
Save the initiates
None fish there.

The other edge the savannah
Flows to Atamora
And disappears into her cave, dead end.

The third
Source from a hollow shallow...
Here I love to sit
Throw pebbles at the fishes, gippies...
Hear the tinkling timbrels
Of the squeaking squirels
Where crickets, insects and birds
Compere ballets.

When the green mambas, pitch cobras, tense vipers slither pass I warned the rats
Should the python chanced by
I run and hide.

My gallery forest
dense and blest
Sit by this beck
From thence...
Spread its presence.

Patmos Pronunciations

The day of the lord
I read in the revelations
Will be worse than wars
Upon the world...
A day that will be
When the trees shall flee
And mountains will melt
Diseases of the Egyptians in seven-fold vehemence
Is re-kindled
For its the lord vengeance...

The day of sores, blood and total darkness
None has ever witnessed
Day of dearth, heat, hails and distress
Time of blasphemy from the tongue of men to their maker
When the lord's fury shall be vented via vials of wrath, filled-up and poured ...

Mercy as stranded
Is incapacitated...
For its the lord vengeance
Upon the earth for neglect
Of a blood shed on a crucifix
For her preference
for the mark of the beast...
Six, six and six.

Le Commencement de la fin

Imminence stretches
Well over ages
Millenniums, centuries
Jubilees and decades

Not really sluggish
But in patient mercies
Has thus lingered, wish'
To save us from hades

Now the spirit speaks expressly
No vague allusions of dark sayings
'I come quickly'
And time is dying.

There is a trend
In this time modern
That's now the blend
In the lands western

gods have assumed
This new pattern
Angels have consumed
From its Cistern

There are things altered
Some are totally changed
What's natural faltered
Life's estranged

gods now favor faux bodies
Cherubs carry cesium chests
Some have got laser pupils
Seraphs bare silicon breasts

Men, branded as cattle's
Women wearing tatoos
Kids in gun battles
And such as were taboos

Nation 'gainst nation in cold war
Kingdoms steep in tensions
Disasters, pestilence sore
The abomination of desolations

And that iniquities abound
Love is waxen cold
Say the trumpet soon shall sound
We needn't be told .

ALLI NAJEEBAT(Resqueiscant In Pace)

We tread same path
For she loved math...

When the news reached my ears
It took years ere it spread
And when it did, no tears
Only some rude shock, hot, red.

What stole your lil soul
Make me feel so old
Whatever stilled your heaving chest
Has roused in me a great unrest
What killed my little girl
Must have come with some spell
Should have taken me instead
Ought to spare your pretty head...
But time is different
And mine is lenient.

She was so young
Smart and strong,
She loved math
I teach that...

As for poems
She write them
With her eyes
Lucid and bright
-typical African-
In my heart...

Now, I've lost my rhythm and rhyme
A muse departed, I weep inside...

My pain non can comprehend
-For I've lost a faithful friend-
Not the pain of a hunter
For his assegai
Not that of a farmer
For his ruined Oryza
Its that of a rabbi
Whose's lost his rahki...
The pain of a teacher.

For We tread the same path
As she loved poems cum math.

Church Of The Poor.

Yesterday, in the night
I stood by her door
And watched her plight
The church of the poor...

Wrinkled. women worn with years
Speckled. men, fewer, aged likewise
Softened, repentant
Burdened, expectant
Sit side by side
List' to the preacher's
Interpreter
Rapt... In non-perfunctory genuflection.

Tattered, tired, tried
A pure gold, She Cried
To God, this ghetto church
For poverty so much.

Post-Mortem

Face of the future
Crumpled, muddled-
Up, Rock of feature
Rugged, Faulted
Massive as Drakensberg
Passive and Heisenberg.

In The Cradle

Lying sprawled
From P.G.A hall
In O.A.U
Is the cradle...
Like oil painting glossy
The sky vaunting foggy
The rest is green, deep
Like a lulling, to sleep.

NightNight

She has her fright
The fears of cruel plight
Everyone accords her.
How pure, so pitch, such phobos!

Yet, her dreaded person
Met me awaiting her return
Me, my gal
Aside a crumbling wall
Our tryst - fully conscious of the perilous peril -
To flirt, fondle and kiss
The deeds of the dark.

She scoffed
What an affront
An insult on her person!
And would have showed us
Her real stuff
But for mercy that stood in the breach
To stay the crumbling wall
From a fatal fall.

July 33rd

Today, July 33rd
We fight the same old war
With the eyes sword
And mad gestures
No spoken words
A tense tension...

This morn
As you sweep the yard
I long
For a simple Hi
None come
I only could sigh
And like Jesu Kristi
Groan in my spirit
Moan so silently
Damn! domestic perfidy...

How I long to mouth
For Am so uncouth
Long to let out
A big, big shout
Like in war front
'Happy new month`.

Child play

With tender lips
I kissed the tendril like tips
Of veiled vein
Neath your neck cape
Looking, I found it
Eliciting a cackle
Wringing a toothless cackle out of you
As I laughed too.

Odokoto; aqua in the hollow

In the visne
Of my soul unfolds...
As roused by the radio
Thickets symphony, synthetic...
The way to Ibao
The path through
a dense forest
Leads to
A clearing where palm fruits
Are gathered under the shade of a tree
of broad boughs overspreading...

There my mother old
On earth cold sits
Her gland mammary now flabby
Hang loose
Tossing to and fro with arms
Picking palms off its spines.

Oh mother!
The spines have pricked me
Am bleeding
Hear my blood speaks
Grievous like Abel's

My mother !
A snake has bitten me
Mamba? Viper? Adder?
I did not see the slither
Less the antedote proper,
My ankle is swollen
It swells with venom of vengeance.

Yeye O !
Am trapped in my path
My bones are broken
Crushed by the jaws
Of the iron gin
Who has snared me
In my field?

Where is my father?
He's not here, am fatherless
Now a stranger has snared
The Terra-fillius?

Come brothers
Set me free
Come for my hands are weak
Come, bring matchete
Kill this slither, an adder
Take care
don't tread on its tail
Take care
Let it not come nigh
Our dog is a prey.

Kill this adder
Burn the spines
Take the snare of strangers in our land.

I'm tired brothers
Bear me
I'm thirsty
Give me drink

Give me drink
of the aqua in the hollow
Scooped with ewe-iye...
Set me Free.

Odokoto; aqua in the hollow.

On that day
The day of big hunt
Me, my song, me
Kasina and Sakiru
Beat about the bush
Rousing the roes and bucks
From whence they'd lain

A lead shot my song
A lead shot did stray
From the hunter's gun
And through Kasina's shoulder had gone
A red-hot ember
Buried nigh his scapula

That day my song
I feared, I cried
My brother has died
"Carpals don't die
before the hand
Tarsals don't lie
dead in the land
While the foot is alive
And you, Kasina, must thrive..."

"Water quenches fire
Aqua-celestis severe drought
You Kasina, a Terra-fillius
This soil can't sup on your blood
You, Kasina, son of Ogun
He won't bath with your blood, eewo..."

"Your blood is bitter... Iwo
Tis gall to witches and wizards
You are untouchable
The enchantment of the wicked is useless
The son of Ore
Can't be offered a sacrifice to Ore"

And leaves did work
Charms, words proved efficacious
As the shot was extracted

I was there my song
Now it seem so long.

What have we done Oluigbo?
Where have we gone wrong Aresa?
Why are ye so cross
That you took him from us?
Took him in a lone hunt
Took him in a night hunt
Took him and we lorn
Took him now we mourn
Have the leaves gone asleep?
The charms and pronouncements too?

The falcon's returned
Where is the falconer?
Its the hound we see
Howling all night
Tale a tale
It's his shroud they see
Wandering, murmuring...

Its morn
The village is silent
So my song - quiet.

The falcon's returned
Where is the falconer?
Here are the hounds
Where is the hunter?

For long my song
For long so long
We've waived this evil

Grey was that day
A great, sad day
When the chief- hound
Sakara, chased a deer
Into the haunt of Ebora
A cave neath Atamara

The mythical hill
A queer chill
When you mount it

And we never knew
The deer Sakara's chased
Is dear to Ebora Atamara
That we hunt in the haunt
Of the spirit beings
That the games are claims
Of some guidance spirit
That the cave neath the hill
Is there saving safety

And Sakara chased
A prey into its lay
And turned the prey
Returned crawling
Returned drooling profusely
Status epileptus
Grand mal

Returned and dropped dead.
We had buried the dog
Seem to have pleased the gods...

But my song
All along
We only postponed this evil...