I Don't Know by Abike Benson

I Don't Know

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know bad. Do I know good?

Witchcraft was her means

She got all for them making others cry

Her own children are nobles

No one knows the secret

And then she dies.

It is a befitting burial. Golden casket

Food and wine like a flowing river

Sound of music everywhere

Then it is testimony time

"Abiyamọ tòótọ́ọ́" they praised her

But is she really good?

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know ugly. Do I know beauty?

What a dark face!

Wrinkled hands, all covered with hair

Monkey can be ugly

Its mother always see differently

How convenient?

You call it ugly

Or you don't just like it?

It is in the eyes of the beholder

It is what it seems to you

But is it really ugly?

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know love. Do I know hatred?

Riches attract with fleet of cars and affluence

He is a royalty. She easily falls for him

How convenient?

Beauty attracts with gorgeousness

She will have crowd controlling problem

I mean men controlling problem 

Is it really love?

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know life. Do I know death?

I'm alive. Or so I think

Maybe I am not. Am I just confused?

But those in heaven live still

When they are dead here 

The living dead!

I cannot explain the expression.

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know generous. Do I know stingy?

I thought I knew

Until someone was given a cap

And had his head taken from him

Beware of money givers

What if he's buying virtue not for sale

How then can I know?

Trade by barter ring a bell

But never found its synonym.

Words can be misinterpreted

Actions misjudged

The physical eyes have limitations

A think lining covering the mind

Not like a big bowl,

The stomach cannot be opened

Many ambiguities in a single line

Relativity of words driving me crazy

How can I know if I don't know?

And why should I misjudge?

Concluding almost impossible

If I don't know. Yet, won't pretend to know.

Abike Benson

Teach Me

Teach Me by Oladehinde Ibikunle

Teach me

To speak, to write and to act

Without tenuating the tenets of truth.

Teach me

Oh, to love with the whole heart

Whether - or not - such love be unrequited.

Teach me

To douse my anger

When my heart is bedevilled with fury.

Teach me

That anger is insanity, sadness is folly

And happiness is but sweet ecstasy.

Teach me

To smile and try again

When the sadness of failure betides.

Teach me

My peace to hold, the impulse to control

When happiness holds the rein of my heart.

Teach me

To live each day in furtherance

Of yesterday at my own little pace.

Teach me

To live not by competition

But by the pursuit of internal happiness

Teach me

Yes, teach me of contentment

Even if everything altogether is a pinch of salt.

Teach me

Please, teach me to laugh

For each cackle of laughter, they say, is priceless.

Teach me

On my fellow, mercy to have

For my soul abhors seeing a fellow languishing.

Teach me

To be remorseful and sorry

Whenever I fall fallibly to imperfection.

Teach me

The good and the bad to know

And to discern when any of them comes disguising.

Oladehinde Ibikunle

The Sun

 The Sun

by Seun Lari-Williams 

In winter, I watched as the sun barely bothered

to get out of bed in the morning (as though

terribly ill), only to shut its eyes again

not long after.

In summer, I could swear I saw it rise

at just a few minutes past midnight, 

and then relentlessly refuse to go to sleep

at night (like a toddler).

As one whose sub-Saharan skin had only 

ever seen the sun rise and set

really about the same time each day,

I thought to myself:

How drastically different a fundamental fact 

can be to a traveler.

Even you, glorious, ancient sun – 

you, too, have taken a stab at my tiny little bubble.

Seun Lari-Williams was born in 1987. He attended Badagry Grammar School and studied law at the University of Lagos where he served as President of the Law Society. His first anthology Garri for Breakfast was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature.

Gather My Blood, Rivers Of Song

Remi Raji

I 
Sometimes a man gets tired of going to sea as now 
when the voices I hear speak nothing but shame, and silence. 

When the calabash goes to the river and never returns 
The carver is drenched in tears, the drinker is famished. 

Sometimes all we have is the inheritance of loss 
the infidel body wrapped in the thickness of sins 

There is wickedness beneath the tranquil sea. 
And the heaviness above craves the lightness of love. 

So I return to the red sea that flows in the vein. 

II 
certainty is far behind in the coast, and it is up behind the hills 
each time you think you arrive there, it is uncertainty that lies waiting 

To embrace fire, you must breathe the wind

To claim the sea's presence, you must share the river's route; 

To die you must be afraid to live... 
And if you cannot kill the smoke, why do you start the fire? 

To become the sorcery of days 
You must possess the gaze that blinds beyond the light. 

III 
you were not in these places, but there's a scent of each in you 
i should know 
i wished you were beside me in lagos, mealha, cachopo, 
in portugal, 
the rustic air reminds me of the valley of a thousand stories, 
as in durban, south africa, which awakens the midsummer night's dream 
of the bright woodlands of Stockholm, Sweden, 
where I could read my palms and the fine letters 
of jared diamond's guns, germs and steel… 
the little streets knew our steps, lost in a circle of eden, innocent to the lights 
as it was in the delicate neck of the dance in addis, ethiopia 
as it was in salzburg, austria, where friendship was won suddenly by ideas and 
instinct 
as it was in Cambridge, uk where we organized parties for books and stars 

and i wished you were close by in the crazed joys of riga, 
and ventspils, latvia... 
and even absent in the many other places, you always remain 
as the sturdy baobab in my heart's savannah... 

in the mouth of night, every firefly has your attitude 
gather my blood, rivers of song... 

IV 
i love you as 
the sun kisses the day, 
i love you as 
the moon wraps the tender night, 
i love you as 
the rivers run into the rimless sea, 
i love you as 
the wind caresses my naked skin 
in the promise of rain, 
i love you as 
love is; and because they say love doesn't last, 
i don't want to love you anymore, 
i just want to be, 
with you. I want to walk your coast 
in silence, in laughter, and in tears, 
one with you as the colour of night. 

I want to marry you again in the age of enlightenment 
You will be my muse 
You will kill me and resurrect me 
You will make me dance to the song in your eyes 
You will make me all over and I will be made 
You are the lovely stretch marks over my bones 
You're the sweetness of day, the lovely mystery of night, 
and the everlasting breath... 

i want to do to you what needles of rain do 
to the parched earth 
i want to do to you what the morning sun does 
to butter nuggets 
what the honey bee does to the pollen in the shrub 
i want to hide in you, and hide you in me, 
that the world will end and come alive again, and again 
i want to love every alphabet that spells your name. 

Gather my blood, rivers of song.

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

Lockdown

Lockdown

by Collen Xumalo

I am on lockdown in a small shack

praying hard, hoping Mr. Pres hear my cries

no need to send soldiers,they worsen da attack 

da hunger will probably kill me b4 da virus does 

I'm on lockdown with a monster inside da house

 I only feel safe when I play outside 

my step dad touches me like I'm his spouse 

he took my virginity & killed my pride 

we're on lockdown under unbearable conditions 

people shout "stay at home" from afar 

judging us based on what they see on television 

vivid pictures, they can't see our scars 

we have been on lockdown all our lives 

fighting to escape, see da sunshine & stay alive

Collen Xumalo

The Other Ninety-Nine

The Other Ninety-Nine 

by Seun Lari-Williams

You go around telling how the

shepherd left us,

the remaining ninety-nine,

in search of you, 

the lost one,

until he found you.

You say, when he found you,

he carried you on his shoulders,

rejoicing.

That it made you smile sheepishly.

You go off singing, off-key,

a love song about

how special you are.

You’ve always liked to feel special

though.

And that’s your weakness.

Call us the jealous brother but

you do realize he didn’t leave us

in an unsafe place, right?

You know he’d never do that?

And you do realize he’d do the same

for the rest of us –

each and every one of us?

Can you imagine how he’d have felt

if when he returned, he couldn’t find the

remaining ninety-nine?

No, you can’t.

Because you can’t help thinking there’s

something special about you.

You say, when he got home,

he called his friends, his family, 

and his neighbours

to rejoice with him.

But did he offer them meat? 

Did he say to them:

“Let’s kill and eat one or two

of my other sheep

because I found this one”?

Of course, not.

You know why?

You’re not special.

You know why?

We’re all special.

Seun Lari-Williams was born in 1987. He attended Badagry Grammar School and studied law at the University of Lagos where he served as President of the Law Society. His first anthology Garri for Breakfast was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature.

Squid Game Naija

Squid Game Naija 

by Seun Lari-Williams

Green light, red light. 

Where you for see light?

If to sey money dey am, 

maybe we for tink am.

But for Squid Game Naija,

na for only our life we dey play.

Start.

Obi Chikolobi 

Obi out! 

(But Obi for no die if to sey 

doctor dem no dey on strike). 

Ada chikalada

Ada bang!

(Container fall on top Ada

for Ojuelegba).

Tinko Tinko 

tinkoloko Tinko.

We no see uncle Tanko again, 

as we no get money for ransom.

Farmers, form a big circle

at the back of your homes. 

Now, who is in the garden? 

Ten chubby, graceful cows.

Boju Boju, o! O! 

Now open your eyes.

After round one, 

one hundred farmers shot

in the head.

On 20/10

youths played Ten Ten. 

Several raised the wrong leg.

All of them dead

(Accidental discharge by

Ungun knownmen). 

Pikin sef dey play o. 

Like police wey dey find thief,

pikin sef must find

mama and papa wey 

fit give dem food chop -

before dem even born dem.

No be me go tok 

how many pikin die

for inside and outside IDP camp 

for only last year.

There is fire on the mountain. 

If anybody run go Mountain of Fire, 

abeg help me ask 

why e be like sey na we

be de ten thousand 

falling at the side.

Seun Lari-Williams was born in 1987. He attended Badagry Grammar School and studied law at the University of Lagos where he served as President of the Law Society. His first anthology Garri for Breakfast was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature.

The Meeting

The Meeting

by Seun Lari-Williams 

A pandemic meets an old man on the road. 

Who is this who is not afraid of me? 

You must be religious, I believe. 

Which of the gods do you worship? 

I am not religious, the old man replies, 

I must go about my business. 

You must be immune, then, the pandemic says,

or perhaps you have found a cure? 

I really don't care, the old man groans, 

my business is urgent, I must go. 

Then surely, you are foolish, the pandemic retorts. 

Have you not heard the reports? 

I am hunger, the old man began, 

I've been here since the world began. 

Wars and diseases, they come and they go. 

None has lived as long as I have. 

You burn at both ends; your end is near. 

I burn slow like fine firewood. 

Keep them indoors and fill them with fright, 

but when l knock, they come right out. 

Your reputation precedes you, the pandemic responds 

and bows before the old man. 

They kiss and hug and shake hands like old friends and 

smile knowingly at each other. 

The old man takes his leave and continues his routine-

knocking on doors and turning knobs.

Seun Lari-Williams was born in 1987. He attended Badagry Grammar School and studied law at the University of Lagos where he served as President of the Law Society. His first anthology Garri for Breakfast was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature.

Lovesong for my Wasteland, Sequence XVII by Remi Raji

But as it was in the beginning... 
We have long been lost to the substance of things 
We have long sought the shadow of the masquerader 
And we puke in pride and laziness. 

As it was... 
We who own the land steeped in fats 
Still beg the world to feed our greed. 
You who now call yourselves conquerors 
Where, where is your trophy of victory?

For those who snore in the glory of self-contentment 
The past is, 
the present is not, 
the future is nothing.

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

Fogetting...

Remi Raji

As sure as the deceptive day 
you're the only cell in my stem 
the stomata of unending songs,... 

Because I crave your lips, and you're not here 
I want to forget you, haunted by the paradox in the air 
you're the only thing whose epilepsy I have loved 
and I have known betrayals not like yours... 

Your contradictions have become the theorem

of what it is to love and laugh in the gutters of despair 
But I'm also a paradox, born into the treachery of dim decades 
I have survived other lives and many deaths. 

I want to forget, 
I want to forget your face 
I want to forget your face in my fear 
I want to forget my fear in your face 
I want to forget my fear in your face forever... 

Because I am possessed, my songs for you will not end 
And though the abuse persists 
it is in your tears that the diamonds shall grow. 
One day when you go out with me, if I live to hold your sight again 
the evening will wear a new name, and your familiar places painted new. 

I will be the resurrection, you the lives of many who are silenced now.

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is the pen name of Aderemi Raji-Oyelade, a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

Abuja by Tanure Ojaide

Here where all cardinal points meet in a capital

Here where rocks raise homes to the sky

Here where the savannah rolls over the soil

the coven where witches plot the demise of others

this is where chiefs celebrate on the sweat of slaves

this is where range chickens consume and scatter leftovers

this is where the hyena's den is guarded by rings of packs

and swallowed it, leaving no scent for a trace

this is where the boa-constrictor strangles its catch

this is where robbers boast of their callous acts

and laugh at the plight of a hundred million cowards

this is where the national flag covers a cesspool

this is where a god led his worshippers to die

this is where I weep for my entire land

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.

Raider Of The Treasure Trove

Lade Wosornu

But what can be worthy of your life?

What dearer than the gems or your dreams;

The reason you are here? Always strive

To fly flags of joy, and, sail up streams

Powered by the breeze of love, your course

Chattered in the ink of compassion

And, fling roses wherever you pause

Heavens-on-earth your destination.

Of things which would blot out that brief

Or, breach your sails with arrows unseen

No, Rob you of your life, Rage is Chief

Rage drags rags after you, of Charity

Laughter, sweetness and light, Rage is thief

Enemy of equanimity

Rage spreads toxic fumes on every scene.

In essence, Rage spells calamity

It's sole cause? Your perception of storms

Breaking around, not upon, your head

There are either snakes, deviants nor norms;

As you think, so you feel. Watch your mind

Rage sets sail. Can ruin lag far behind?

I'll fling roses wherever I berth

My destination is Heaven-on-earth.

Ladé Wosornu, professor in surgery (retired), is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and a poet, essayist and columnist for The Ghanaian Times, writing on health and wellness issues. ... As a poet, he won the V.A.L.C.O. literary award. His most abiding poems are Desert Rivers and The Master Brewer.

Questions and Prayers by Remi Raji

when the locusts come, will you greet them 

with tears and blood, in the aftermath of fractured years? 

when the termites come with fangs of iron 
can you be the grit stubbornness of rocks? 

when your throat is filled with fire 
why do you watch in silence? 

where will you give birth to the red hunger

of truth, who will welcome the sailing tongue? 

where will you hide amid these impatient clouds 
will you go where the smoke is perfumed light 

when your throat is filled with fire? 
will you bury the anger in the coffin of laughter? 

you are a poet, the incurable child, 
can you dream a song for tomorrow?

or are you cursed to cry without ceasing 
about wilted seasons fattened in sorrow? 

each time you leave you weep 
as each time a lover leaves you on a rough road, 

each time the wind brings the news of your own bleeding 
they ask what will you do, why are you silent as the dead bee? 

even if you spit poison as the saliva of oceans 
what will happen, what will happen? 

still do not sleep, dream but scream at slumber, 
will you forget those forgotten in the teeth of dogs 

those to whom agony is both foretaste and dessert 
whose faces are painted in gloom, who bleed still and dance in hope? 

Salute them all, who never said farewell to our tale. 
Salute them, who always return, flowers in the diseased heart. 

To all the seeds, all the fruits, and all the plants 
and all the trees without names, offer a prayer of rains 

To the locusts and termites, spoilers of rivers 
and plunderers of farms, let the tongue become the fire, 

let the fire borrow the shine of a thousand-edged sword, 
let the sword burn and soothe the land.

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is the pen name of Aderemi Raji-Oyelade, a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

The Song Of The Women Of My Land by Oumar Farouk

Like a sculptor chipping away at bits of wood, 

Time chisels away bits of their memory 

It strips away lyrics of the song of the women of my land

Leaving only a fading tune echoing the song, 

they sang in the forlorn fields 

about their lives; songs 

of how they ploughed the terrain of their mindscape; 

for memories of lyrics lost in the vast void of time 

in those days when a song beheld their lives; 

when servitude cuffed the ankles of their soul, 

and dereliction decapitated the epic of their lives. 

With a song, they sponged off their anguish, 

to behold their collective pain, 

to celebrate their gains, 

give lyrics to the tune of their lives, 

cheat the tyranny of time, 

and commune with the yet unborn 

to give meaning to an epoch lost in antiquity, 

Yet time strips the lyrics and scars the tune, 

leaving a dying song 

Dead!

Like the women who died long ago, 

Leaving the song to tell the story of their lives 

Today the tune roams the forlorn fields

Like their souls looking for lyrics

To tell the tale of the servitude 

Of the women my land 

Who ploughed their soil and soul 

For a song to sing the story of their lives 

The song of the women of my land 

left in the memory of the wind. 

Now feeding the verses of poets, it echoes in fields 

Wriggling in rhythms and melodies, 

Hollering in distant tunes 

In places Far aField From the Forlorn Fields, 

where the song of their lives died. 

The stuttering lips of my pen 

And the screeching voice of my nib 

try to sing the song of the women of my land 

In verses Far From the theatre of toil 

where they left a Song that now roams the land 

stripped of lyrics like a scorned ghost. 

The tune tuning the tenor of my verse, 

is all that remains of the song of the women of my land

Who labored and died leaving a dying song: 

The dirge of their lives! 

Oumar Farouk Sesay was resident playwright of Bai Bureh Theatre in the ’80s.  Several of his plays were performed in the then City hall and he won accolades among his peers. He veered into journalism and wrote for several local and international newspapers. He has been published in many anthologies of Sierra Leonean poets; Lice in the Lion’s Mane, Songs That Pour the Heart, Kalashnikov in the Sun and AFRIKA IM GEDICHT. 

Lovesong for my Wasteland, Sequence XXX by Remi Raji

Trapped, double-trapped, triple-trapped 
I feel the outlaw's pain 
I know the anguish of exile 
I feel the decimal of failure in the hearts of men. 
So I know. I know 
Why my sisters hang onto the certainty of damnation 
I know why everywhere my brothers turn 
They expect the handshakes of humiliation 
And I know why they don't trust even their shadows in motion. 
We've once been trapped like mice in the vice of death.

Trapped, double-trapped, triple-trapped...

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

Salutation

Demi Raji

I come gently 
Like the evening rain 

I come in silence 
Like the dews of a virgin morn 

I come suddenly 
Like thunder, like the rain at noon. 

Rites of first tuber and leaves to you

Oh forbears of redolent words 
Salute to you who ponder our ways to sunlight 
Salute to you who hold pestles of songs 
To the mouths of mortal wrongs. 

I salute the song I salute the singer 
I salute the patience of quick proverbs 
I salute the craft in immortal songs 
I salute the pebbles I salute the pearls... 

Give my voice the sonorous strains of bitter kolas 
Give my voice the slippery depths of colobus bananas 
Let my eyes curve into the past 
Like a sickle in the harvest of gladsome songs 
Let my blood draw the picture of things 
Gone, going and coming... 

I come tenderly 
like the full moon 
among gasping stars. 

I come gently like the evening rain.

Demi Raji

Remi Raji is a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

A Government Driver on his Retirement

Onu Kingsley Chibuike

Many years on wheels
In faithful service to his fatherland
Today retires he home
And a celebration he holds

Many years has he pummeled his boozy throat
In obedience to duty rules and regulations
Today, he’ll go home a Freeman
Eligible for his country’s services

“Come, friends, rejoice with me
I shall booze and zoom myself home
Away from duty rules
Come celebrate my freedom”
“Early to duty tomorrow holds not,
Thirty-five years of faithful services
I’ll booze to sleep away my sufferings
Today I’ve long waited for”

More joy to send him home.
A brand new car in his name
An appreciative symbol
For undented thirty-five years of service to
Fatherland

“Come, friends and rejoice more,
Joy till no more joy to joy
Today frees and makes me a king
My patience rewarded”.

And so, he boozed and boozed
Celebrating the celebration of his retirement
From faithful service to fatherland
He battled with his bottle booze
On his way home on wheels,
Booze boozed his vision and clear judgment
He boomed his brand new car
And it sent him home
Home to rest in peace.

Born into the family of Mr and Mrs Albert Rosh Nduanusi Onu, Onu Chibuike Egwuatu Kingsley hails from Umuomi-Uzoagba ( now Ezenomi ), in Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State. He schooled at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where he obtained his degree in Bachelors of Arts Education English. He is a rising Nigerian writer and a teacher. He teaches English Language and Literature in one of the secondary schools in Anambra State, Nigeria. Goodnight Africa is his first celebrated anthology.

The Grieved Lands of Africa by Agostinho Neto

Agostinho Neto

The grieved lands of Africa
In the tearful woes of ancient and modern slave
In the degrading sweat of impure dance
Of other seas
Grieved
The grieved lands of Africa
In the infamous sensation of the stunning perfume of the
Flower
Crushed in the forest
By the wickedness of iron and fire
The grieved lands
The grieved lands of Africa
In the dream soon undone in jinglings of gaolers’ keys
And in the stifled laughter and victorious voice of laments
And in the unconscious brilliance of hidden sensations
Of the grieved lands of Africa

Alive 
In themselves and with us alive
They bubble up in dreams
Decked with dances by baobabs over balances
By the antelope
In the perpetual alliance of everything that lives
They shout out the sound of life
Shout it
Even the corpses thrown up by the Atlantic
In putrid offering of incoherence
And death and in the clearness
Of rivers
They live
The grieved land of Africa
In the harmonious sound of consciences
Contained in the honest blood of men 
In the strong desire of men
In the sincerity
In the pure and simple rightness of the stars’
Existence
They live
The grieved lands of Africa
Because we are living
And are imperishable particles
Of the grieved lands of Africa.

— Agostinho Neto

Agostinho Neto, in full António Agostinho Neto, 

(born September 17, 1922, Icolo e Bengo, 

Angola—died September 10, 1979, Moscow, Russia, 

U.S.S.R.), Angolan poet, physician, and politician

 who served as the first president (1975–79) of

 the People’s Republic of Angola.

Inú Rere

Niyi Osundare

When your heart is clean

And your mind is good

You will walk through fire

But you will not be burnt

You will run the race

You will not be tired

You will see a star

On the darkest nights

Your yam will be white and crisp

Your bread soft and warm

Your song will be the kind

The world will like to sing.

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.

NEPA

Niyi Odindare

Dark nights, hot days 

You spoil our fun and ruin our plays

  

The fridge is warm, the stove is cold 

Hunger in the house is strong and bold 

You come and go, you go and come 

Unsure, unstable, like a dizzy bum

  

A bright surge now, then a yellow candle 

Our darkest fear you hardly kindle 

Sweat at work, sweat in the homes 

In churches and mosques and their towers and domes 

Factories go without a hum 

The cost of your darkness is a pretty sum 

Our books unread, homework undone 

Though we stay awake till the dark, dark dawn 

NEPA, oh! NEPA Some say you rhyme with ‘leper’ 

In your dark we grope 

And it’s hard to cope. 

Niyi Odundare

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.

Lovesong for my Wasteland, Sequence XLI by Remi Raji

And suddenly my land becomes a bride again 

In this memory of decimals 
You're a soulful, full-bodied number 
the even envy of oddities... 

Dressed like the garden of Arcadia 

Make the mountains sing your name 
Make the valleys vow in your name

Let the evening sun rise in gold, in your name 
Walk in beauty like the deer among hogs
The forests proclaim your antimony of flesh... 

I too proclaim you, woman, wife, mother, lover...my land. 

You're the principle of sunshine 
The embrace of pleasant fires 
The only death I wish in this wasteland

For Love is the only language I know 
In a season of parched promises and shrunken memories 
Love is the caprice of remembrance, the remedy of forgetting. 

And suddenly my land becomes a bride again.

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

Dreamtalk

(with musical accompaniment: drum, cello or guitar)

Remi Raji

I will like to turn you inside out and step into your skin 
To be, that sober shadow in the mirror of indifference 

Look at me, slowly, behold the irises wherein you hide 
Wherein lies the ultrasound of hidden bleeding images 

And because you shift, you shift, you shift and shift 
I can tell you cringe to see the hypnosis of your own silence 

For I am the last tomb of an invisible age of the dead

I am the first to spread the resilience of resurrection 

For you I tremble to speak like the restless trombone 
I thirst to contain songs like the basket of chants 

But you shift, you shift 
You shift like the cynical child of an impatient father 

You shift because you fear to hear your own mimicry 
You shift and run like the extra day in a leap year

I will wait at the dock of your roundtrip pretence 
Or like grandfather's ageless stool in the square 

I will wait never to abandon you to this deafness 
I will like to tell you things you know but never know. 

And because ours is a deep-scarred cataract of anguish 
I will love you still in this age of hate and cholera 

When you reach the crossroads where nothing means 
Then you will read the road map on my face 

And out of my lips will fall the seductive words of life 
Because death is nothing but impossible silence 

And out of your lips the first syllables of light 
The first theorem of delight, the first desire of forgotten desires 

Together we shall surprise the world of the spirit 
Together we'll be the envy of the world of the flesh 

In your shadow I will see myself and you in mine 
And no one mirror will contain the sinews of our image 

We will walk a thousand years back, back 
To the hills, valleys and the beach of beginnings 

You will use my voice to compose new songs 
And when I open my mouth, the voice will be yours 

In the fresh frenzy in the lyrical light 
In the volcano of valiant passion, in these- 

We will dream dreams and our dreams will become 
The cushion stones of new times, new seeds, new fruits 

Our dream, my dream, but where are you in this trance 
I will go back to the crossroads I'm sure you're waiting...

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

Bound To Remember

Lovesong for my Wasteland, Sequence VII

Remi Raji

no water runs where the Niger flows 
no fish swims where the Benue berths 

my spirit is grieved, my grief is long like the rivers 
i will not forgive i will not forget 
i will be like God vengeance of truth 
i will be thunder in the kidneys of liars 

i will remember the tadpole head 
of our terrible tales i will remember

the necklace of the albatross 
hanging in the hearts of butchers 

i will remember the bomb-game goon 
i will remember his landmines of lies 
i will remember the oasis of blood 

no water runs where the Niger flows 
no fish swims where the Benue berths

my spirit is grieved, my grief is long like the rivers 

how will i forget the pain 
when i remember the knife and see the scar? 

no water runs where the Niger flows 
no fish swims where the Benue berths 
my spirit is... 
grieved. 
i see rodents still 
i see reptiles in new skins 
i see bats flying above the flood 
and i smell the odour in the air 
which betrays the anus of the tribe 
dressed but naked like prostitutes... 

oh, i am grieved beyond forgeting...

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

I Will Find You

Remi Raji

Tonight my verse will find you dancing alone 
a hurricane of desires will pass me, unknown. 

And I the anchor, martyr to your trance, 
draped, in the absolution of your absence. 

You for whom I have wandered in uncertain pines 
You for whom I have sacrificed my limbs in open mines. 

You for whom I have many names...

What delights me more this very moment: 
your laughter, salty as the rain's chemistry 
on a parched tongue, or your seismic filament, 
which gives fulness to your minted mystery. 

Tonight my verse seeks you but I'm a speck of dream. 

In the middle of it all, when you are not there 
I always find you in the finesse of sand

in the sounds of stones, rivers, and in the clouds' jeer 
in the waves, in the foams and dunes of the land. 

We will not know the day but the hour will come 

in the hurricane and the dance 
in the liberty of the trance 
in this serration 
and that imagination 
all mean less than the remembrance of fire. 

It is in that hour that my verse will find you 
It is in that second that my song will fill you.

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is the pen name of Aderemi Raji-Oyelade, a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

Come Buy History BERLIN 1884/5 by Niyi Osundare

I looked round for vendors of my own past,
For that Hall where, many seasons ago,
My Continent was sliced up like a juicy mango
.
To quell the quarrel of alien siblings
I looked for the knife which exacted the rift
How many kingdoms held its handle
.
The bravado of its blade
The wisdom of potentates who put
The map before the man
.
The cruel arrogance of empire,
Of kings/queens who laid claim to rivers, to mountains,
To other peoples and other gods and other histories
.
And they who went to bed under one conqueror's flag,
Waking up the next beneath the shadows of another
Their ears twisted to the syllable of alien tongues

Gunboats
Territories of terror...

Oh that map, that knife, those
contending emperors
These bleeding scars in a Continent's soul,
Insisting on a millennium of healing.

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.

For Nigeria at 59

Niyi Osundare

With limbs half limp and a vacant gaze

She plods through the months and hazy days

Some hail her as Africa’s Giant

But she bears herself like a hapless ant

Blessed with sunshine and abundant rain

She blights her people with needless pain

Their boundless strength she converts to curse

Their bus to bliss becomes a hearse

While others make, they prefer to fake

The sweat-fruit of others they take and take

Insatiable consumers of foreign goods

A land long lost in subservient woods

The best of her brains desert in droves

This land of paupers and princely rogues

Who fritter our flairs and drain our dreams

With their fell designs and venal schemes

A land so blessed but so betrayed

She leaves the world ever so dismayed

Big-for-Nothing is her middle name

An Open Sore and a Continent’s shame

But Hope’s wide door is never shut

Its kernel is hard as a seasoned nut

The Sleeping Giant may yet awake

When her folks rid themselves of their mindless ache

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.