The Stars Have Departed by Christopher Okigbo

The Stars Have Departed

The Stars have departed,
the sky in monocle
surveys the worldunder
The stars have departed,
and I-where am I?
Stretch, stretch, O antennae,
to clutch at this hour,
fulfilling each moment in a
broken monody.

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was born in 1930. He was a Nigerian poet and he is today widely acknowledged as the outstanding postcolonial English - language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independence of Biafra.

Newcomer III by Christopher Okigbo

Newcomer iii
(for Goergette)

In the chill breath
of the day's waking
comes the newcomer
when the draper of May
has sold out fine green
garments, and the hillsides
have made up their faces
and the gardens
on their faces
a painted smile:
such synthetic welcome
at the cock's third siren
when from behind bulrushes
waking
in the teeth of the chill Maymorn
comes the newcomer.

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was born in 1930. He was a Nigerian poet and he is today widely acknowledged as the outstanding postcolonial English - language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independence of Biafra.

August Break by Okogbule Wonodi

August Break

After three months of long break
The land is a sodden bed
Of dried pond. The tarred roads shine
Fine threads of steam to the air.

The playground jump and chatter
With the presence of children
In games abandoned yesterday
When the sky was falling tears.

The streets bustle with vendors,
Calling their wares by sweet names;
And the radio shops yell out
The rival sounds of Highlife.

Okogbule Wonodi (1935-2001)

Love Apart by Christopher Okigbo

Love Apart

The moon has ascended between us,
Between two pines
That bow to each other;
Love with the moon has ascended,
Has fed on our solitary stems;
And we are now shadows
That cling to each other,
But kiss the air only.

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was born in 1930. He was a Nigerian poet and he is today widely acknowledged as the outstanding postcolonial English - language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independence of Biafra.

Olokun by J. P. Clark

Olokun

I love to pass my fingers
(As tide thro' weeds of the sea
And wind the tall fern-fronds)
Thro' the strands of your hair
Dark as night that screens the naked moon:
I am jealous and passionate
Like Jehovah, God of the Jews,
And I would that you realise
No greater love had woman
From man than the one I have for you!
But what wakeful eyes of man,
Made of the mud of this earth,
Can stare at the touch of sleep
The sable vehicle of dream
Which indeed is the look of your eyes!
So drunken, like ancient walls
We crumble in heaps at your feet;
And as the good maid of the sea,
Full of rich bounties for men,
You lift us all beggars to your breast.

J. P. Clark

John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo was born on 6th April,1935. He is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He has written and published numerous poems and plays, some of his most popular works are Abiku (poetry) and Song of a Goat (a play).

Her Mother by Okogbule Wonodi

Her Mother

She stood still at break of day,
the palm tree, erect and slim;
I see her still but who would say
that such rays could dim
and hopes sway.

What a Tuesday was it
when the sun went to sea?
Alas! Alas!
The poor's deposit
that's drawn and sealed.

You hear me;
let sense sane and stay,
we ate here
you and me
and now she's dead and away
down mortals' stream.

The morning food,
warmed in a platter of broken pot,
the gentle slap on the back,
to warn a rascal and correct
are forever gone.

She stood firm on her work,
she, godlike feeder,
now lives
beyond the reaches of thought
and sight.

Where the gods
that she called night and day
in sacrificial belief?

The earth god
thunder and sun
where stood they ?
she's dead and none,
not one stands to say:
She lived well

And here we stand
Lonely and dry.

Okogbule Wonodi (1935-2001)

Ibadan by J. P. Clark

Ibadan

Ibadan,
running splash of rust
and gold-flung and scattered
among seven hills like broken
china in the sun.

J. P. Clark

John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo was born on 6th April,1935. He is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He has written and published numerous poems and plays, some of his most popular works are Abiku (poetry) and Song of a Goat (a play).

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Noliwe by Leopold Sedar Senghor

Noliwe

The weakness of the heart is holly...
Ah! You think that I never loved her
My Negress fair with palmoil, slender as a plume
Thighs of a starlet otter, of Kilimanjaro snow
Breasts of mellow rice-fields, hills of acacias under the
East Wind.
Noliwe with her arms of boas, lips of the adder
Noliwe, her eyes were constellations there is no need of moon or drum
But her voice in my head and the feverous pulse of the night …
Ah! You think that I never loved her!
But these long years, this breaking on the wheel of the
years, this carcan strangling every act
This long night without sleep I wandered like a
mare from the Zambezi, running and rushing at the stars
Gnawed by a nameless suffering, like the leopards in the trap.
I would not have killed her if I had loved her less.
I had to escape from doubt
From the intoxication of the milk of her mouth, from
the throbbing drum of the night of my blood
From my bowels of fervent lava, from the uranium
mines of my heart in the depths of my Blackness
From love of Noliwe
From the love of my black skinned People.

Leopold Sedar Senghor

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese Negritude poet and politician. He was the first president of Senegal. Senghor was born on 9th October 1906 in Joal, French West Africa (present-day Senegal) and died on 20th December 2001 in Verson , France.

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Native by Okogbule Wonodi

Native

Your eyes toe-set
thumb my nerves
as you weave
your being into frenzy;
and your tongue,
weaving a song,
painting the scenes
as I sit toe-dancing
Then you pull
those eyelids over
as you bend
downwards to dance
yourself into goddess;
And your waist,
swinging to rhythm,
answering the drum
as I look, headshaking.
Then light fades,
those scenes fly
as you stretch
your being, panting,
and your mouth,
muttering my name,
stifling my nerves
as I end my verse!

Okogbule Wonodi (1935-2001)

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Outsider by Micheal Echeruo

Outsider

Between the oyster-beach and the greens...
Sea and barren coast.
Between tresses of dark silver and reels of danger...
lonesome bird of the wilds!
I spat on the world from between my gums,
Shouted at the moon from between my lungs,
Hooted at the chirrupy mermaid of the dusk...
clever lad of goddam tribe!
Then came the winds, flushing hearts,
The rains came, drenching all their mirth,
Came thunder scattering all irrelevance..
happy child of the new testament!
There were tears, then, when I was born,
There were aches, too, when I was born
Tears to drop, and hearts to ache,
No brains to pry, no minds to try
Where, when I was born.
So take, take me away!
Send, send me away!
Let the gold I loved which never was
Delude its glory-minded prodigy.
Send, O send me away!

Micheal Echeruo

Michael Joseph Echeruo, born March 14, 1937, is a Nigerian academic, professor and literary critic. He was educated at the University College, Ibadan (now the University of Ibadan) from 1955 to 1960 and was contemporaries with a few notable writers and poets from the college, such as Christopher Okigbo.

Our History to Precolonial Africa by Mbella Sonne Dipoko

And the waves arrived.
Swimming in like hump-backed divers
With their finds from far-away seas.

Their lustre gave the illusion pearls
As shorewards they shoved up mighty canoes
And looked like the carcass of drifting whales.

And our sight misled us
When the sun's glint on the spear's blade
Passed for lightning
And the gun-fire of conquest
The thunderbolt that razed the forest.

So did our days change their garb
From hides of leopard skin
To prints of false lions
That fall in tatters
Like the wings of whipped butterflies.

Mbella Sonne Dipoko

Mbella Sonne Dipoko (1936 in Douala – December 5, 2009 in Tiko ) was a novelist , poet and painter from Cameroon . He is widely considered to be one of the foremost writers of Anglophone Cameroonian literature.

Waiting by Niyi Osundare

Long-
er
than
the
y
a
w
n
of
the
moon
in
a
sky
so
brown
with
heels
of
fleeting
fancies
a
diamond
tear
waits,
tremulous,
in
the
eye
of
the
cloud,
dropping

Niyi Osundare

Niyi Osundare was born in 1947 in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria. He is a prolific writer and highly valued literary critic. In December 2014, Osundare was awarded the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) for academic excellence.

The Renegade by David Diop

My brother you flash your teeth in response to every hyprocrisy
My brother with gold-rimmed glasses
You give your master a blue-eyed faithful look
My poor brother in immaculate evening dress
Screaming and whispering and pleading in the parlours of condescension
We pity you
Your country's burning sun is nothing but a shadow
On your serene ‘civilized’ brow
And the thought of your grandmother's hut
Brings blushes to your face that is bleached
By years of humiliation and bad conscience
And while you trample on the bitter red soil of Africa
Let these words of anguish keep time with your restless
Step -
Oh I am lonely so lonely here.

David Diop

David Mandessi Diop was born on July 9, 1927 in Bordeaux, France to a Senegalese father and a Cameroonian mother. Back to Senegal, Diop started writing at a very tender age and he was one of the most promising French West African poets known for his contribution to the Négritude literary movement. His work reflects his hatred of colonial rulers and his hope for an independent Africa. He died in a plane crash, at the age of 33, in 1960.

We Have Come Home by Lenrie Peters

We have come home
From the bloodless wars
With sunken hearts
Our booths full of pride-
From the true massacre of the soul
When we have asked
‘What does it cost
To be loved and left alone’

We have come home
Bringing the pledge
Which is written in rainbow colours
Across the sky-for burial
But is not the time
To lay wreaths
For yesterday’s crimes,
Night threatens
Time dissolves
And there is no acquaintance
With tomorrow

The gurgling drums
Echo the stars
The forest howls
And between the trees
The dark sun appears.

We have come home
When the dawn falters
Singing songs of other lands
The death march
Violating our ears
Knowing all our loves and tears
Determined by the spinning coin

We have come home
To the green foothills
To drink from the cup
Of warm and mellow birdsong
‘To the hot beaches
Where the boats go out to sea
Threshing the ocean’s harvest
And the hovering, plunging
Gliding gulls shower kisses on the waves

We have come home
Where through the lighting flash
And the thundering rain
The famine the drought,
The sudden spirit
Lingers on the road
Supporting the tortured remnants
of the flesh
That spirit which asks no favour
of the world
But to have dignity.

Lenrie Peters

Lenrie Leopold Wilfred Peters was a Gambian surgeon, educationist, novelist and poet. He was born on 1st September, 1932 and died on 28th May,2009. May his soul rest in peace.

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The Mesh by Kwesi Brew

We have come to the cross-roads
And I must either leave or come with you.
I lingered over the choice
But in the darkness of my doubts
You lifted the lamp of love
And I saw in your face
The road that I should take.

Kwesi Brew

Kwesi Brew was a Ghanaian poet born in 1928 anddied in 2007. He was born to a Fante family but he was brought up by a British guardian - education officer, K. J. Dickens after his parents died.

Season by Wole Soyinka

Rust is ripeness, rust.
And the wilted corn-plume.
Pollen is mating-time when swallows
weave a dance.
Of feathered arrows
Thread corn-stalks in winged
Streaks of light. And we loved to hear
Spliced phrases of the wind, to hear
Rasps in the field, where corn-leaves
pierce like bamboo slivers.
Now, garnerers we,
Awaiting rust on tassels, draw
Long shadows from the dusk, wreathe
The thatch in wood-smoke. Laden stalks
Ride the germ's decay-we await
The promise of the rust.

Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka is one the most honoured African poets. He is a playwright, poet, lecturer and an activist. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature in 1986 being the African to be so honoured. Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July, 1934.

The Call of the River Nun by Gabriel Okara

I hear your call!
I hear it far away;
I hear it break the circle of these crouching hills.

I want to view your face again and feel your cold
embrace; or at your brim to set myself and inhale your breath;
or like the trees,
to watch my mirrored self unfold and span my days with
song from the lips of dawn.

I hear your lapping call!
I hear it coming through;
invoking the ghost of a child
listening, where river birds hail your silver-surfaced flow.

My river's calling too!
Its ceaseless flow impels
my found'ring canoe down
its inevitable course.
And each dying year
brings near the sea-bird call,
the final call that
stills the crested waves
and breaks in two the curtain
of silence of my upturned canoe.

O incomprehensible God!
Shall my pilot be
my inborn stars to that
final call to Thee.
O my river's complex course?

Gabriel Okara

Gabriel jibaba Okara was born on 25th April, 1921 in Bomoundi in Bayelsa State, Nigeria . In 1979, he was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry.

Civilian and Soldier by Wole Soyinka

My apparition rose from the fall of lead,
Declared, 'I am a civilian.' It only served
To aggravate your fright. For how could I
Have risen, a being of this world, in that hour
Of impartial death! And I thought also: nor is
Your quarrel of this world.

You stood still
For both eternities, and oh I heard the lesson
Of your traing sessions, cautioning -
Scorch earth behind you, do not leave
A dubious neutral to the rear. Reiteration
Of my civilian quandary, burrowing earth
From the lead festival of your more eager friends
Worked the worse on your confusion, and when
You brought the gun to bear on me, and death
Twitched me gently in the eye, your plight
And all of you came clear to me.

I hope some day
Intent upon my trade of living, to be checked
In stride by your apparition in a trench,
Signalling, I am a soldier. No hesitation then
But I shall shoot you clean and fair
With meat and bread, a gourd of wine
A bunch of breasts from either arm, and that
Lone question - do you friend, even now, know
What it is all about?

Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka is one the most honoured African poets. He is a playwright, poet, lecturer and an activist. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature in 1986 being the African to be so honoured. Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July, 1934.

Home Song II by Tanure Ojaide

Expecting the arrival of a king, we have
been waiting in sun and rain staring at
the horizon for the stirring of a head.
Days have passed us standing, left
our hope stale despite cool winds
from new directions blowing our way.
Now we can care less about patience
but must reinforce our resolve
with the assurance of experienced messengers.
We while away months and years singing
to keep our spirits awake and active
so as to witness the spectacle many hope
will come with a massive flood of blood.
Several times the rule of succession
has been broken by strong hands
and none of the princes of the patriarch
can claim right of succession without a war.
That's been the bane of the land, sacrificing
so many contestants for the emergence
of one usurper after another - those with
the closest claim suffer imprisonment
or premature death from torture.
Still it's our custom to wait for the arrival
of a king whose dominion we built into a refuge
& with trembling hearts do not know whether
we'll be sacrificed to clear the way he will take
to step over skulls of those who lined
the way to his accession.
We cannot tell what the horizon hides from us
but which we expect anytime, cramped as we are,
standing at attention in sun and rain and with stiff necks.

Tanure Ojaide

Tanure Ojaide (born 1948) is a prolific Nigerian poet and writer. He is noted for his unique stylistic vision and for his intense criticism of imperialism, religion,and other issues. He is the author of six books of poetrty, including Labyrinths of the Delta , The Blood of Peace and The Daydream of Ants . He is two-time winner of both the All-Africa Okigbo Prizefor Poetry and the Association of Nigerian Authors' Poetry Prize. A memoir, Great Boys: An African Childhood , was recently published.

I Will Pronounce Your Name by Léopold Sédar Senghor

I will pronounce your name, Naett, I will declaim you, Naett!
Naett, your name is mild like cinnamon, it is the fragrance in which the lemon grove sleeps
Naett, your name is the sugared clarity of blooming coffee trees
And it resembles the savannah, that blossoms forth under the masculine ardour of the midday sun
Name of dew, fresher than shadows of tamarind,
Fresher even than the short dusk, when the heat of the day is silenced,
Naett, that is the dry tornado, the hard clap of lightning
Naett, coin of gold, shining coal, you my night, my sun!…
I am you hero, and now I have become your sorcerer, in order to pronounce your names.
Princess of Elissa, banished from Futa on the fateful day.

Léopold Sédar Senghor

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese Negritude poet and politician. He was the first president of Senegal. Senghor was born on 9th October 1906 in Joal , French West Africa (present-day Senegal) and died on 20th December 2001 in Verson , France.

Euphony of Myself by Oladehinde Ibikunle

The eulogy of my spirit

Which is the euphony of myself, 

My soul rises from His temple

Bearing a big lamp

Bows in worship of poetry.

I am that undaunted pen

That writes on an uneven tablet

Some rhetoric pentametres.

I am the poet of ludicrous limericks, 

I am the poet of witty didactics.

I write of carnality, I write of spirituality 

Of loathing and of loving.

I am the vibrant writer for the bored, 

I am the philosophical poet of the day

Writing melancholies of life's ephemiralty.

I am the bare footed bard

I am the mortal poet

With an indefatigable heart

Toiling an inexorable path

To the starry sky.

I write verses of elegaic dirge, 

I write odes to new moppet.

I am for the dead - I am for the living

The Sun has furiously frown'd at me-

At same me, the Sun has sedately smiled.

I am the worthless bagatelle; 

I am the rejected lad

I am the celebrated bard.

I thought of pleasures of Heaven

I thought of pains of Hell

If they were real, I would make one; 

But if not, I would make none.

I have felt the chagrin of failure

As much as the prestige of success, 

I moan'd and winced in distress

And I have rejoiced in great euphoria.

I am the rejected - I am the celebrated

I have recieved unmentionable hatred

As much as immeasureable love.

Thus, ask you me: 

Whence are all these, 

Whither are all these? 

I have not the answer

For I, myself, do not know.

But go you thither

To that soul of mine

That worships His god of poetry.

When I sleep

It is but poetry, 

When I am sad, let me write

For I will be happy.

When I am happy, let me write

For it will make me pensive.

Poetry is the path I tread

My head is full of it

My heart is brim'd of it

My whole soul is in it.

From poetry I am drunk

It controls my thought

It controls my life

Let my mouth be mute

My fingers and pen will never be mute.

An urgly physiognomy I possess

But my fingers are most beautiful

And for these reasons, a poet I be

I have no god, no love, no hobby

Poetry is my all.

I ate in the dish of poetry

Witty are mine own words, 

I drank from the eternal cup

Of water poison'd of poetry

I have been cursed of poetry

In it I live

And in it shall I die! 

Or let me die now

And wrap me with poems

And bare me to the cemetary

A coffin of poet, a grave of poet

I will be glad I die in poetry.

Mama Preye's Ogogoro (Mama Preye's Local Gin) by Robert Nabena

Each drop I gulp,
burning my throat,
As the morning sun comes alive
Lifting my senses,
And setting my eyes aright
Mama Preye's tap,
Never ending,
Never dry

Jolly old friend,
Uniting clans at dawn
From Zarama to Kula,
Opu Nembe to Saka,
Through paths where canoes dread.

each icy drop,
Embracing my entire being,
Burning down her path,
As hot as the sensation
She leaves on my lips.

Light as a feather,
I take a peep through her bottle,
The blurred lines
From her lens,
Enough effect for a day.
Mama Preye's bottle
Never ending,
Never dry

Robert Nabena

Robert Nabena is a Nigerian author and contributing
writer for various journals, magazines and newsletters.

Abiku by J. P. Clark

Coming and going these several seasons,
Do stay out on the baobab tree,
Follow where you please your kindred spirits
If indoors is not enough for you.
True, it leaks through the thatch
When floods brim the banks,
And the bats and the owls
Often tear in at night through the eaves,
And at harmattan, the bamboo walls
Are ready tinder for the fire
That dries the fresh fish up on the rack.
Still, it’s been the healthy stock
To several fingers, to many more will be
Who reach to the sun.
No longer then bestride the threshold
But step in and stay
For good. We know the knife scars
Serrating down your back and front
Like beak of the sword-fish,
And both your ears, notched
As a bondsman to this house,
Are all relics of your first comings.
Then step in, step in and stay
For her body is tired,
Tired, her milk going sour
Where many more mouths gladden the heart.

J. P. Clark

John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo was born on 6th April,1935. He is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He has written and published numerous poems andplays, some of his most popular works are Abiku (poetry) and Song of a Goat (a play).

Abiku by Wole Soyinka

In vain your bangles cast
Charmed circles at my feet;
I am Abiku, calling for the first
And the repeated time.

Must I weep for goats and cowries
For palm oil and the sprinkled ash?
Yams do not sprout in amulets
To earth Abiku's limbs.

So when the snail is burnt in his shell
Whet the heated fragments, brand me
Deeply on the breast. You must know him
When Abiku calls again.

I am the squirrel teeth, cracked
The riddle of the palm. Remember
This, and dig me deeper still into
The god's swollen foot.

Once and the repeated time, ageless
Though I puke. And when you pour
Libations, each finger points me near
The way I came, where

The ground is wet with mourning
White dew suckles flesh-birds
Evening befriends the spider, trapping
Flies in wind-froth;

Night, and Abiku sucks the oil
From lamps. Mother! I'll be the
Supplicant snake coiled on the doorstep
Yours the killing cry.

The ripest fruit was saddest;
Where I crept, the warmth was cloying.
In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping
Mounds from the yolk.

Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka is one the most honoured African poets. He is a playwright, poet, lecturer and an activist. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature in 1986 being the African to be so honoured. Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July, 1934.

Hurrah for Thunder by Christopher Okigbo

WHATEVER happened to the elephant –
Hurrah for Thunder –

The elephant, tetrarch of the jungle:
With a wave of the hand
He could pull four trees to the ground;
His four mortar legs pounded the earth:
Wherever they treaded,
The grass was forbidden to be there.

Alas! the elephant has fallen –
Hurrah for thunder –

But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:
If they share the meat let them remember thunder.

The eye that looks down will surely see the nose;
The finger that fits should be used to pick the nose.

Today-for tomorrow, today becomes yesterday:
How many million promises can ever fill a basket...

If I don’t learn to shut my mouth I’ll soon go to hell,
I, Okigbo, town-crier/ together with my iron bell.

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was born in 1930. He was a Nigerian poet and he is today widely acknowledged as the outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independence of Biafra.

Soul Canoe by Malika Ndlovu

Superbly carved, polished and primed to snugly fit no other body but mine
Once branch or sturdy trunk, your loving sculpted torso turned hull shines
Amber-gold in the distance, beckoning me to the chilly waters’ edge
I dreamed this invitation long, long ago knowing this river would deliver me
Seasons past uniquely reflected in each tree, now sheltering me from visibility
This voyage is solitary – that is the nature of it I understood even as a child
Wordlessly delighting in water, earth, wind, sky’s company, tossing my voice
Across strips of time, hearing it swallowed or hilariously returning to me triplefold
A little girl growing up yet deeper into her skin, continually stretching her concepts of self
Of being, I am wired for such journeying, senses curious, hungry, attuned instinctively
Joy-filled pursuit of as yet un-manifest possibilities, gratefully rooted in faith in the unseen
Stubbornly optimistic about the purpose and potential of humanity, I still defy disillusionment
Perpetuating buoyancy, this so-called naivety amidst acute awareness of all our destruction,
Our suffering, answering your call to carry me silently slicing through murky depths
Life’s many shadows, necessary deaths precipitating eternal streams of first breaths
I am here, abandoning all fear resurfacing from buried memory, wounded silenced ancestry
Carry me, I am here, willing, wishing, already afloat internally, teasing my old friend gravity
More interested in flowing than finding assurance of where we are going or when we will arrive.

Malika Ndlovu

Malika Lueen Ndlovu is a South African poetess, playwright, performer arts project manager and mother of three, She has four of her own poetry anthologies, besides her work being featured in several local and international publications.

Stolen From Freedom Street by Robert Nabena

Fierce attacks on Mama Nneka's hut,
Swift, painful and brutal blows dealt
Trapped in a net,
A metal sling around my wrist,
I heard Mama Nneka scream
At the end of freedom street

Stolen, bought or sold against my will
A lonely traveler
On a lonely journey
Beyond the Atlantic
Tortured, stripped and chained
Amanze never knew much pain

Caged like rats,
I lay still on racks
Dirty racks befitting my price
Covered in kernel oil
We bay in Queens country
Awaiting my day of auction

Ape that I am
The rest of my life
Decided by a stranger
I am a slave
A lonely traveler.

Robert Nabena

Robert Nabena is a Nigerian author and
contributing writer for various journals, magazines
and newsletters.

Stanley Meets Metusa by David Rubadiri

Such a time of it they had;
The heat of the day
The chill of the night
And the mosquitoes that followed.
Such was the time and
They bound for a kingdom.

The thin weary line of carries
With tattered dirty rags to cover their backs;
The battered bulky chests
That kept on falling off their shaven heads.
Their tempers high and hot
The sun fierce and scorching
With it rose their spirits
With its fall their hopes
As each day sweated their bodies dry and
Flies clung in clumps on their sweat scented backs.
Such was the march
And the hot season just breaking.

Each day a weary pony dropped
Left for the vultures on the plains;
Each afternoon a human skeleton collapsed,
But the march trudged on
Its Khaki leader in front
He the spirit that inspired
He the light of hope.

Then came the afternoon of a hungry march,
A hot and hungry march it was;
The Nile and the Nyanza
Lay like two twins
Azure across the green country side.
The march leapt on chaunting
Like young gazelles to a water hole.
Heart beat faster
Loads felt lighter
As the cool water lapt their sore feet.
No more the dread of hungry hyenas
But only tales of valour when
At Mutesa’s court fires are lit.
No more the burning heat of the day
But song, laughter and dance.

The village looks on behind banana groves,
Children peer behind reed fences.
Such was the welcome
No singing women to chaunt a welcome
Or drums to greet the white ambassador;
Only a few silent nods from aged faces
And one rumbling drum roll
To summon Mutesa’s court to parley
For the country was not sure.

The gate of needs is flung open,
There is silence
But only a moment’s silence-
A silence of assessment.
The tall black king steps forward,
He towers over the thin bearded white man,
Then grabbing his lean white hand
Manages to whisper
“Mtu Mweupe Karibu”
white man you are welcome.
The gate of polished reed closes behind them
And the West is let in.

David Rubadiri

David Rubadiri was born in Liuli, Malawi, in 1930. He attended King’s College, Budo, in Uganda from 1941 to 1950 and thereafter studied at Makerere University, where he graduated with a BA degree in English Literature and History. Rubadiri ranks as one of Africa’s most celebrated and widely anthologised poets to emerge after independence.

Watermaid by Christopher Okigbo

EYE OPEN on the sea,
eyes open, of the prodigal;
upward to heaven shoot
where stars will fall from.
Secret I have told into no ear,
save into a dughole, to hold, not to drown with –
Secret I have planted into beachsand
Now breaks
salt-white surf on the stones and me,
and lobsters and shells
in iodine smell-
maid of the salt-emptiness,
sophisticreamy,
whose secret I have covered up with beachsand…
Shadow of rain over sunbeaten beach,
Shadow of rain over man with woman.

BRIGHT
with the armpit-dazzle of a lioness,
she answers,
wearing white light about her;
and the waves escort her,
my lioness,
crowned with moonlight.
So brief her presence-
match-flare in wind's breath-
so brief with mirrors around me.
Downward…
the waves distil her;
gold crop
sinking ungathered.
Watermaid of the salt-emptiness,
grown are the ears of the secret.

AND I WHO am here abandoned,
count the sand by wave lash abandoned,
count her blessing, my white queen.
But the spent sea reflects
from his mirrored visage
not my queen, a broken shadow.
So I who count in my island the moments,
count the hour which will bring
my lost queen with angels' ash in the wind.

THE STARS have departed,
the sky in monocle
surveys the world under
The stars have departed,
and I-where am I?
Stretch, stretch, O antennae,
to clutch at this hour,
fulfilling each moment in a
broken monody.

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was born in 1930. He was a Nigerian poet and he is today widely acknowledged as the outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independenceof Biafra.

Kampala Beggar by David Rubadiri

Dark twisted form
Of shreds and cunning
Crawling with an inward twinkle
At the agonies of Africa.

Praying and pricing
Passers by
As in black and white
Jingle pennies past;

A hawk’s eye
Penetrates to the core
On a hot afternoon
To pick the victims
That with a mission
Dare not look at
This conflict.

A dollar drops,
An Indian sulk
Passively avoids-
I am stabbed to the core;
Pride rationally injured.

In the orbits of our experience
Our beggarness meets
With the clang of symbols,
Beggarly we understand
As naturally we both know
The Kampala beggar
Is wise-

David Rubadiri

David Rubadiri was born in Liuli, Malawi, in 1930. He attended King’s College, Budo, in Uganda from 1941 to 1950 and thereafter studied at Makerere University, where he graduated with a BA degree in English Literature and History. Rubadiri ranks as one of Africa’s most celebrated and widely anthologised poets to emerge after independence.

The Passage Christopher Okigbo

BEFORE YOU, mother Idoto*,
Naked I stand;
Before your watery presence,
A prodigal
Leaning on an oilbean,
Lost in your legend.
Under your power wait I
on barefoot,
watchman for the watchword
at Heavensgate;
out of the depths my cry:
give ear and hearken…

DARK WATERS of the beginning.
Rays, violet and short, piercing the gloom,
Foreshadow the fire that is dreamed of.
Rainbow on far side, arched like a boa bent to kill,
foreshadows the rain that is dreamed of.
Me to the orangey
Solitude invites,
A wagtail, to tell
The tangled-wood-tale;
A sunbird, to mourn
A mother on a spray.
Rain and sun in single combat;
On one leg standing,
In silence at the passage,
The young bird at the passage.

SILENT FACES at crossroads:
Festivity in black…
Faces of black like long black
column of ants,
behind the bell tower,
into the hot garden
where all roads meet:
festivity in black…
O Anna at the knobs of the panel oblong,
hear us at crossroads at the great hinges
where the players of loft pipe organs
rehearse old lovely fragments, alone-
strains of pressed orange leaves on pages,
bleach of the light of years held in leather:
For we are listening in cornfields
Among the wind players,
Listening to the wind leaning over
Its loveliest fragment…

* A village stream. The oilbean, the tortoise and the
python are totems for her worship.

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was born in 1930. He was a Nigerian poet and he is today widely acknowledged as the outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independence of Biafra.

Death at Mulago by David Rubadiri

Towers of strength
Granite
Enduring
Like life itself.

Up they rise
Tall and slender
And around them
White coats flit.
Like the magic they spell.
New Mulago Hospital
-the name shakes -
she stood firmly
on that cool afternoon
giving names, tribes and sex,
a woman clad in busuti.

As the fullstop was entered
On a white sheet of paper
A whitecoat gave a nod.

Her hands cross her chest
And the message unsaid
Crushing granite and concrete
In gushing tears of pain
And a lonely sorrow.

David Rubadiri

David Rubadiri was born in Liuli, Malawi, in 1930. He attended King’s College, Budo, in Uganda from 1941 to 1950 and thereafter studied at Makerere University, where he graduated with a BA degree in English Literature and History. Rubadiri ranks as one of Africa’s most celebrated and widely anthologised poets to emerge after independence.

SEE MORE POEMS ON YOUTUBE

The Sun on this Rubble Dennis Brutus

The sun on this rubble after rain .

Bruised though we must be
some easement we
require
unarguably, though we
argue against desire.

Under jackboots our bones and spirits crunch
forced into sweat- tear - sodden slush
- now glow - lipped by this sudden touch :

- sun - stripped perhaps , our bones may later sing
or spell out their
maglinant nemesis
Sharpevilled to spearpoints for revenging

but now our pride- dumbed mouth are wide with
wordless supplication
- are grateful for the least relief from pain

- like this sun on this debris after rain .

Dennis Brutus

Dennis Vincent Brutus was a South African social activist and prolific poet. He was jailed with Nelson Mandela in the 1960s in the fight against apartheid having their cells next to each other in Roben Island. He was born on 28th November 1924 and died on 26 December 2009.

Begging Aid by David Rubadiri

Whilst our children
Become smaller than guns,
Elders become big
Circus Lions
Away from home.

Whilst the manes age
In the Zoos
That now our homelands
Have become,
Markets of leftovers,
Guns are taller
Than our children.

In the beggarhood
Of a Circus
That now is home,
The whip of the Ringmaster
Cracks with a snap
That eats through
The backs of our being.

Hands stretching
In a prayer
Of submission
In a beggarhood
Of Elders delicately
Performing the tightrope
To amuse the Gate
For Tips
That will bring home
Toys of death.

David Rubadiri

David Rubadiri was born in Liuli, Malawi, in 1930. He attended King’s College, Budo, in Uganda from 1941 to 1950 and thereafter studied at Makerere University, where he graduated with a BA degree in English Literature and History. Rubadiri ranks as one of Africa’s most celebrated and widely anthologised poets to emerge after independence.

SEE MORE POEMS ON YOUTUBE

Beware, Soul Brother by Chinua Achebe

We are the men of soul
men of song we measure out
our joys and agonies
in paces of the dance.

Beware, soul brother, beware,
for others there will be
lying in waiting, leaden-footed, tone deaf,
passionate to despoil the devour.

Take care then, mother’s son, take care,
lest you become a dancer disinherited in mid-air
hanging a lame foot in air like the hen
in a strange unfamiliar compound.

Protect this patrimony to which
you must return when the song is finished
and the dancers disperse;

Remember also your children
for they in their time will want a
place for their feet when they come of age
and the dance of the future is born for them.

Chinua Achebe

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart (published in 1958) was considered as the most widely read book in modernAfrican literature. He was born in Ogidi on 6 November 1930 and died in Massachusetts, USA on 21 March 2013.

An African Thunderstorm by David Rubadiri

From the west
Clouds come hurrying with the wind
Turning sharply
Here and there
Like a plague of locusts
Whirling,
Tossing up things on its tail
Like a madman chasing nothing.

Pregnant clouds
Ride stately on its back,
Gathering to perch on hills
Like sinister dark wings;
The wind whistles by
And trees bend to let it pass.

In the village
Screams of delighted children,
Toss and turn
In the din of the whirling wind,
Women,
Babies clinging on their backs
Dart about
In and out
Madly;
The wind whistles by
Whilst trees bend to let it pass.

Clothes wave like tattered flags
Flying off
To expose dangling breasts
As jagged blinding flashes
Rumble, tremble and crack
Amidst the smell of fired smoke
And the pelting march of the storm.

David Rubadiri

David Rubadiri was born in Liuli, Malawi, in 1930. He attended King’s College, Budo, in Uganda from 1941 to 1950 and thereafter studied at Makerere University, where he graduated with a BA degree in English Literature and History. Rubadiri ranks as one of Africa’s most celebrated and widely anthologised poets to emerge after independence.

SEE MORE POEMS ON YOUTUBE

Wake for Okigbo by Chinua Achebe ( Ifeanyi Menkiti)

For whom are we searching?
For whom are we searching?
For Okigbo we are searching!
Nzomalizo!

Has he gone for firewood, let him return.
Has he gone to fetch water, let him return.
Has he gone to the marketplace, let him return.
For Okigbo we are searching!
Nzomalizo!

For whom are we searching?
For whom are we searching?
For Okigbo we are searching!
Nzomalizo!

Has he gone for firewood, may Ugboko not take him.
Has he gone to the stream, may Iyi not swallow him!
Has he gone to the market, then keep from him you
Tumult of the marketplace!
Has he gone to battle,
Please Ogbonuke step aside for him!
For Okigbo we are searching!
Nzomalizo!

They bring home a dance, who is to dance it for us?
They bring home a war, who will fight it for us?
The one we call repeatedly,
there’s something he alone can do
It is Okigbo we are calling!
Nzomalizo!

Witness the dance, how it arrives
The war, how it has broken out
But the caller of the dance is nowhere to be found
The brave one in battle is nowhere in sight!
Do you not see now that whom we call again
And again, there is something he alone can do?
It is Okigbo we are calling!
Nzomalizo!

The dance ends abruptly
The spirit dancers fold their dance and depart in midday
Rain soaks the stalwart, soaks the two-sided drum!
The flute is broken that elevates the spirit
The music pot shattered that accompanies the leg in its measure
Brave one of my blood!
Brave one of Igbo land!
Brave one in the middle of so much blood!
Owner of riches in the dwelling place of spirit
Okigbo is the one I am calling!
Nzomalizo!

...CHINUA ACHEBE
(Translated from the Igbo by Ifeanyi Menkiti)

In memory of the poet Christopher Okigbo (1932-1967)

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart (published in 1958) was considered as the most widely read book in modern African literature. He was born in Ogidi on 6 November 1930 and died in Massachusetts, USA on 21 March 2013.