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.