Fragments Out Of The Deluge VIII: But The Sunbird by Christopher Okigbo

BUT the Sunbird –

Listen under the oilbean shadows –

Repeats, repeats,

over the oilbean shadows …

A fleet of eagles

over the oilbean shadows

Holds the square

under curse of their rank breath.

Beaks of bronze, wings of

hard-tanned felt,

The eagles flow

over man mountains,

Steep walls of voices,

horizons;

The eagles furrow

dazzling over the voices

With wings like

combs in the wind’s hair

Out of the solitude,

The fleet,

out of the solitude,

Intangible

like the silk thread of the sunlight,

The eagles ride low,

resplendent… resplendent …

And small birds sing in shadows,

Wobbling under their bones.

So squatting,

A blind dog howls at his godmother –

YUNICE at the passageway,

Singing the moon to sleep over the hills,

YUNICE at the passageway –

Give him no chair, they say,

The crier of the dawn,

Riding with gods and the angry stars

Toward the great sunshine.

Christopher Okigbo

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

The Power and Glory of Memory by Funso Aiyejina

Death, awesome in its totalitarian amour of conceit

Throws arrogant affronts in the face of humanity

Ignoring the power and the glory of memory

Our immortal antidote against the sting of mortality

Our invincible armour against all doctored history

The gentle fingers of dew drops forming before sunrise

On whose invisible wings the promise of bloom rides

Over generations of sand dunes, along the primal path

Of Ogun, pathfinders and pathmender, to an oasis of hope …

Today, men of iron have banished past truths and deeds

And decreed their hirelings into new royal legends

To be installed in bunkers inside custom built palaces

Fitted out with regulation pools, overflowing with milk –

Human milk; protected by blind, deaf and mute walls

Designed to shut out the babble of the market place

Insulate their royal highnesses within a magical comfort

From which, unhindered, they continue to mastermind us

Into the holding bays designed into their castles.

For consolation, let us tickle the armpit of memory

Awake, into gentle horses of speech on whose back

We may ride triumphant into the eternal city of hope

Submerged somewhere inside our past ruins and scope

And beyond to when kings kept faith with their subjects

and watched over the teeming masses in the markets

Listening intensely and always to bold human voices

Intuiting muttered hopes into fulfilled prophecies

Such that the people saw and hailed them as wise

Prostrating themselves, before and after, in gratitude.

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Transition by Christopher Okigbo

Drop of dew on green bowl fostered

on leaf green bowl grows under the lamp

without flesh or colour;

under the lamp into stream of song, streamsong,

in flight into the infinite –

a blinded heron

thrown against the infinite –

where solitude

weaves her interminable mystery under the lamp.

The moonman has gone under the sea:

the singer has gone under the shade.

Christopher Okigbo

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

Before They Came Calling in the Middle of the Night by Funso Aiyejina

Way back when, before chickens became toothless
And turned champion devourers of back-up grains …
Before drunk agents came crashing into our dreams
Armed and ready to arrest metaphors in our streams
On the orders of a General high on syndicated acclaims
Galloping full-speed ahead of our children’s fervent pleas,
I believed with the innocent citizens of our nation
In the open-arm one-on-one embrace of salutation.
But after seeing wily foxes at work in our forests
Spiders spinning deadly webs in and out of contexts,
I now know why, even as they bury comrades freshly killed
Fists of the children of Soweto remain forever clenched.

We have always had their likes: inheritors and usurpers
Who, too cowardly to confront the truths in our songs
Would don the dirty garb of aberrant masquerades
Determined to waylay and strangle singers of tales
Long before the ascension of this General Tortoise.
Today, descendants of those same insolent renegades,
Protected by the anonymity of their choice profession,
Courageously finger the homes of witnesses of truth
Forgetting like their ancestors now condemned to oblivion
That the outstanding relatives of a condemning finger
Are inevitably aimed back at the heart of the pointer.
Whatever darkness conceals, dawn is bound to reveal.

Why argue with men who insist they are really clad
In exotic robes when it is too dark to investigate?
Let them dance. Let them prance. Like the intoxicated.
Daylight, when it arrives on the silent wings of dawn
Will reveal them as wearers of rags before the town.
Men like them are not new; we always had their kind:
Men who conveniently forget that when an order
Fit only for slaves is forced on us we must deliver
Such with the wisdom and courage of the free
Instead of kicking in wide open doors with glee.
To such men our ancestors sent collective ritual curses
Causing them to die abominable deaths, swollen with greed.

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

The Dialogue by Funso Aiyejina

Perched on his balcony of pleasure,

beside a range of gifts,

the King asked the Poet

who stood below to pay homage:

“How are my people faring

on this beautiful day?”

The Poet stretched his ostrich neck

and readied the traditional trick

of “We thank our God and our King by whose twin grace

our heads still sit on our necks…”

but the lie choked his weaverbird throat,

and instead he answered:

“Your Highness, your people are too hungry

to see the beauty of any day;

things are getting worse by the day

as we wait for the better days

which you promised this time last season,

the same promise we’ve always heard

from the echo of every voice

that has ever occupied that throne

upon which you sit”

Livid, like a seven-baralled thunder

the King withdrew with his gifts

and the Poet starved with the people.

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Fragments Out Of The Deluge V: Upon An Empty Sarcophagus by Christopher Okigbo

UPON an empty sarcophagus

out of solid alabaster,

A branch of giant fennel,

on an empty sarcophagus …

Nothing suggests accident

where the beasts

Are finishing their rest:

Smoke of ultramarine and amber

Floating above the fields after

moonlit rains

From tree unto tree distils

the radiance of a king …

You might as well see the new branch

in ENKI;

And that is no new thing either …

Christopher Okigbo

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

eye of the celibate women by Lillian Akampurira Aujo

in the eye of the celibate women
lies a dancing rainbow-ed cloud
and a garland of beautiful-legged men
lean and clean as celestial stags
no hunks of hearts
hanging on strings
no haunted cries
clanging the air
only the green thrum
of buttercups pinked
& witches’ tits tight as drums
coming alive in fields & streams

Lillian Akampurira Aujo

Lillian Aujo is a Ugandan author. In 2009, She was the first winner of the first BN poetry prize by Babishai Niwe (BN) Poetry Foundation . In 2015, she was longlisted for, and won the Inaugural Jalada Prize for Literature for her story "Where pumpkin leaves dwell".

Fragments Out Of The Deluge VII: And From Frame Of Iron by Christopher Okigbo

AND FROM frame of iron

came HE,

In mould of iron …

and he ate the dead lion,

and was within the corpse …

which is not the point;

And who says it matters

which way the kite flows,

Provided movement is around

the burning market,

The centre-

So lilies

Sprouted from rosebeds,

Canalilies,

Like tombstones from pavements;

And to the cross in the void

came pilgrims,

Came floating with burnt-out tapers:

Past the village orchard

where FLANNAGAN

Preached the Pope’s message,

To where drowning nuns suspired,

Asking the KEY-WORD from stone,

and he said:

To sow the fireseed among grasses,

and lo,

To keep it till it burns out …

Christopher Okigbo

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

Sacrifice by Christopher Okigbo

Thundering drums and cannons

in palm grove:

the spirit is in ascent.

I have visited,

on palm beam imprinted

my pentagon –

I have visited, the prodigal…

In palm grove

long drums and cannons:

the spirit in the ascent.

Christopher Okigbo

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

discovery by Lillian Akampurira Aujo

we wonder how to un-tether

from the wreaths of our pasts;

what weaves the sea,

the waves together

where our tears gather

in dirge

bewailing the heft of loss

& sinking

in

un-belonging

wishing to unlock

the noose of un-fitting

Lillian Akampurira Aujo

Lillian Aujo is a Ugandan author. In 2009, She was the first winner of the first BN poetry prize by Babishai Niwe (BN) Poetry Foundation . In 2015, she was longlisted for, and won the Inaugural Jalada Prize for Literature for her story "Where pumpkin leaves dwell".

Lustra by Christopher Okigbo

So would I to the hills again
so would I
to where springs the fountain
there to draw from
and to hilltop clamber
body and soul
whitewashed in the moondew
there to see from

So would I from my eye the mist
so would I
through moonmist to hilltop
there for the cleansing

Here is a new-laid egg
here a white hen at midterm.

Christopher Okigbo

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

A Letter To Lynda, a poem by Funso Aiyejina

A Letter To Lynda

But today I would join you, travelling river,

borne down the years of your patientest flowing,

past pains that would wreck us, sorrows arrest us,

hatred that washes us up on the flats;

and moving on through the plains that receive us,

processioned in tumult, come to the sea.

– Edward Brathwaite

Dear Lynda,

What is incalculably far from us

in point of distance can be near us.

Short distance is not itself nearness.

Nor is great distance remoteness . . .

Martin Heidegger

We who have been separated into one

by the troubled waters of the Atlantic ocean

and united into two by our uncommon pasts,

we must learn with those who have travelled

the snail’s trail with the tortoise

that those chased into rocky limits

must grow to pelt boulders at their assailants;

that seas reflect only objects above their surfaces,

none but divers may perceive secrets buried in their wombs;

and that those abandoned to the mercy of water

must practise to swim like the fish or perish.

I who have wandered across mountains

and across valleys in search of history,

I have recognized myself in the scars

of those who have survived the misdeeds

and the greed of our common ancestors,

ancestors who pandered to the passions

of pale gods from the Atlantic and the Sahara,

ancestors who grovelled after beads after mirrors and

after liquid fires with which to prop their sagging genitals,

ancestors who fashioned crude tools with which they punctured

our radiant early morning dew-drops

so that today our twin summer noons

embrace the same mad ocean of our related pasts.

Now I dip my soul into the ink-well

of our past and write to you

across the virulent atlantic pages of our separation;

I sing of you, muse with the full-moon face,

the magic egg of my many journeys,

native of the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago,

the terminal colon that stands your archipelago

in anticipation of future explications.

Lest we should forget so very soon

why progenitors of thunder-wielding ancestors

now chew grass beneath our ghettoes’ dirt heaps,

let us remember our related betrayals:

the chains the whips the sea and the sun,

let us remember your stray islands

which are bracketed between two visible Americas and appositioned to an invisible Africa

and a far Far East;

let us remember so as never to forget.

Antigua

where if you ask what the Kings chamber pot has

in common with the Princess who,

virgin no more, came on honeymoon in the sun,

you will be told by a proud black guide

that they both shared Clarence House on

Shirley’s Height which overlooks an English Harbour

away from the shores of England;

where too, at their Carnival, men reverse ancestral taboos

as mere mortals whip bull-homed masquerades

to the tune of God Save the Queen.

Barbados,

the nearest to and the furthest from Mother Africa,

where the apoplectic froth and foam

of Bathsheba Beach mock the complacency of the populace

(Bathsheba, concubine to King Solomon, Bathsheba, Mother of the Lion of Judah, the Jah in Jamaica,

I celebrate your anger;

if the Pacific so desires, let it stay peaceful,

it was never baptised with the blood of slaves);

and at Bridgetown’s Harbour,

overseen by Admiral Horatio Nelson,

you can watch the beach boys dive adroitly

for coins tossed by sun-hunters

from abroad the Jolly Roger

into the dark muck of the harbour,

and when the winner surfaces with a large grin,

he is greeted by the silver flash of the cameras

that mask the faces of the offspring of our past massas,

(but some day, dem beach boys going to dive

deep down, deeper down than dem tourists’ copper coins,

into the womb of our past to bring alive skeletons

that name the nameless names whose sweat

built these islands in the sun;

but until then,

let dem tourists keep on tossing dem coins

in the name of God, the Father,

God, the Son, and God, the Holy Ghost);

Amen.

Amen to Grenada

(the youngest cousin of Cuba, Cuba, that gonad

of our thunder), Amen to Grenada

where the little people of a little place

have shown that to be grenade-shaped

is not in itself enough for those

who wish to say no in thunder

from under.

Guyana,

(the home of Pat, the widow of our Walter),

Guyana, the land of failed leaders

and evaporating hopes,

we await the fulfiIment

of the thunder in your clouds.

Jamaica

gateway for Jah, the King of Kings,

where we went to the super –

market and found nothing for supper,

a nation under siege from itself,

a mecca where not even the gods are safe

as macho-men replace their manhood with guns

and advance the background sound of war

in their reggae to the frontdoors of their lives,

a haven where the failures of Man

have led the women to invite the Sea

into their thirsting wombs.

St. Lucia

Fair Helen that is fair no more

now that redeemers of every persuasion

go dim once they have become popular

and the fires of your fire-eaters are no match

for Soufriere’s spit-fire and the lightning thunder

that heralds the hurricanes into Castries.

Trinidad and Tobago,

the last of the archipelago,

a land muddy with the rust of several pasts,

a nation where the leaders start every race

as loud and clear as the cascading water of Maracas

but soon grow slow and devious like the Caroni river

which, navigable no more, now teams up with the Orinoco

to turn the blue of the sea

into the brown of barren deserts.

But above all,

I celebrate the one who says that inspite of all,

let there be a new beginning;

I will strap her like a diver’s goggles

and go in search of the clues

to our future imperfect

so that, as the Niger flows into the Atlantic

that washes the early morning face of the Caribbean,

we shall flow together to create new lives

who will swing no more between two extremes

like strung-up hammocks

still only when dormant,

they will learn neither the language

of the ancestors who sold us

nor that of those who bought us,

they will learn only the language

with which the land communes with the sea

such that they will grow to know

if one conspires to offer them

as sacrifices to the other.

Extend

my warm regards to Mum and Dad

brothers and sisters and our mutual friends;

may history preserve us together into the future.

Fondly yours,

Funso Aiyejina,

Ile-Ife,

January, 1981

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Fragments Out of the Deluge X: But at The Window by Christopher Okigbo

BUT at the window

Outside

at the window,

A shadow –

Listen. Listen again under the shadow…

Give me a spooknif, and shave my long beard …

The Sunbird sings again

From the LIMITS of the dream,

The Sunbird sings again

Where the caress does not reach,

of Guernica,

On whose canvas of blood,

The newsprint-slits of his tongue cling to glue…

& the cancelling out is complete.

Christopher Okigbo

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

equilibrium by Lillian Akampurira Aujo

believe it or not

I keep a lithe gnome

in the cup of my bra

who nips at my spine

all day and all night

I pay him in milk

and he leaps like a lark;

a frisson to my nerves

zapping tablespoons

to clinking frenzy

What such luck! My mother cries

& I slip my good tongue

into the red cave of my mouth

Lillian Akampurira Aujo

Lillian Aujo is a Ugandan author. In 2009, She was the first winner of the first BN poetry prize by Babishai Niwe (BN) Poetry Foundation . In 2015, she was longlisted for, and won the Inaugural Jalada Prize for Literature for her story "Where pumpkin leaves dwell".

Bridge, a poem by Christopher Okigbo

Bridge

I am standing above you and tide

above the noontide,

Listening to the laughter of waters

that do not know why:

Listening to incense…

I am standing above the noontide

with my head above it,

Under my feet float the waters:

tide blows them under.

Christopher Okigbo

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

Eyes Watch the Stars by Christopher Okigbo

Eyes open on the beach,

eyes open, of the prodigal;

upward to heaven shoot

where stars will fall from.

Which secret I have told into no ear;

into a dughole to hold,

not to drown with –

Which 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, native,

whose secret I have covered up with beachsand.

Shadow of rain

over sunbeaten beach,

shadow of rain

over man with woman.

Christopher Okigbo

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

Overture by 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.

Christopher Okigbo

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

When The Monument... by Funso Aiyejina

For Walter Rodney and Ngugi wa Thiong’o

When the monuments to our past

are whittled down by new facts

and our dew drops of change

are sacrificed on the altar of state security,

we awake to the knowledge that

pebbles lodged in muddy ponds

must grow muddy with time…

Now that our messiahs have chased our dreams

from the sacred corners of our hearts

into the blind alleys of our ghettoes

where they proceed to slaughter them

before our astonished imagination

summoning history to witness their feast,

it is time we rejected those who

have severed the link between prayer and miracles,

those who mock our voices with great signboards

which proclaim only fairy-tale projects

and those who make us build the podia

on which they stand to salute our misery

on every anniversary of the revolution.

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Lament of the Flutes by Christopher Okigbo

TIDEWASH… Memories

fold-over-fold free-furrow

mingling old tunes with new.

Tidewash…..Ride me

memories, astride on firm

saddle, wreathed with white

lillies & roses of blood…..

Sing to the rustic flute:

Sing a new note…

Where are the Maytime flowers,

where the roses? What will the

Watermaid bring at sundown,

a garland? A handful of tears?

Sing to the rustic flute:

Sing a new note…

Comes Dawn

gasping thro worn lungs,

Day breathes,

panting like torn horse –

We follow the wind to the fields

Bruising grass leafblade and corn…

Sundown: I draw in my egg head.

Night falls

smearing sore bruises with Sloan’s

boring new holes in old sheets –

We hear them, the talkative pines,

And nightbirds and woodnymphs afar off…

Shall I answer their call,

creep on my underself

out of my snug hole, out of my shell

to the rocks and the fringe for cleansing?

Shall I offer to Idoto

my sandhouse and bones,

then write no more snow-patch?

Sing to the rustic flute.

Sing a new note.

Christopher Okigbo

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

The Stars Have Departed by Christopher Okigbo

The stars have departed

The sky in a 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 movement 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 one of the most outstanding postcolonial English-language African poets and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independence of Biafra.

Fragments Out of The Deluge IX: And to Us They Came by Christopher Okigbo

AND TO US they came –

(Malisons, malisons, mair than ten)

And climbed the bombax

and killed the Sunburn.

And they scanned the forest of oilbean,

its approach,

Surveyed its high branches…

And they entered into the forest,

And they passed through the forest,

oil oilbean,

And found them,

the twin-gods of the forest:

The grove was damp with airs,

with airs

the leaves,

And morndew beckoned, beckoned afar

from the oilbean trees,

From the branches of the gods of IRKALLA.

Within it –

within me –

Not a stir,

not a dead leaf whispered,

Splitting the dawnlit silence;

Not the still breath of the gods of IRKALLA.

Then the beasts broke –

(Malisons, malisons, mair than ten)

And dawn-gust grumbled,

fanning the grove

Like a horse-tail-man,

like the handmaid of dancers,

Fanning their trembling branches.

Their talons,

they drew out of their scabbard,

Upon the tree trunks,

as if on fire-clay,

Their beaks they sharpened,

And spread like eagles their felt-wings,

and descended,

Descended upon the twin-gods of IRKALLA.

And the ornaments of him,

And the beads about his tail;

And the carapace of her,

And her shell,

they divided.

And the gods lie in state

And the gods lie in state

without the long-drum.

And the gods lie unsung

And the gods lie

veiled only with mould,

Behind the shrinehouse.

Gods grow out,

abandoned;

And so do they…

Christopher Okigbo

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

To Ararimeh at Two by Funso Aiyejina

Blessed are they who know how to deploy anger

In the defense of dreams; against nightmares.

They shall inherit futures brimming with life

Forever succulent like the flesh of the cactus …

Blessed are they who know how to deploy anger

Against sages who boast of knowing the prayer

With which to embrace the baobab tree of wisdom

But who, come mid-night, sneak off to the vulture

With multiple offerings – escorts to secret requests

For instant cures for their hereditary baldness …

Against those quick to arrest whispering leaves

But never deem it fit to question raging storms

Which alone sow the seed of recurrent restlessness

Among the virgin branches of our forest of a thousand dreams.

You point angry fingers at their stars

Whenever they crash into our laughter

Via their channel 9 at 9, every night.

Does their rank arrogance recall those nights:

Your pre-conscious encounters with their agents

Who embraced darkness, made it their garment

And were guided to us by hooded informants?

Do you wonder why as one of their many victims

I do not join you in pointing my rage at them?

Do you wonder what has become of my gift of anger?

The well is silent: The well is shallow: A child’s logic!

I am pointing. I am angry: If only you could see into my head!

But not at those who hold the yams and the knives. No.

They are well out of it. Even as they sign our death warrants.

Look beyond them, beyond their thrones, to aide-de-camps

Stiff with the anticipation of a future to be measured in gold:

First ladies lodged in the sanctuary of State Houses

Concubines recruited from virgins’ pools by trusted aides

At home in safe houses and unlisted official annexes

All equipped with state of the art basement chambers

Designed for the ultimate comfort of those parrots

Who are too daft to learn from the three wise monkeys.

Blessed are they who live to celebrate their dreams

They shall not number among the framed and accidentalized.

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Passion Flower by Christopher Okigbo

And the flower weeps

unbruised,

Lacrimae Christi,

For him who was silenced;

whose advent

dumb bells in the dim light celebrate

with wine song:

Messiah will come again,

After the argument in heaven;

Messiah will come again,

Lumen mundi…

Fingers of penitence

bring

to a palm grove

vegetable offering

with five

fingers of chalk.

Christopher Okigbo

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

Aramidé by Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Aramidé

Show me your heavens gate 

Let me leisure there through eternity

Open your floodgates of amorous passion 

As I feel the thrill

 Of your pulsating pleasure 

Aramidé

Open 

Consent  

And let me thrust through 

your paradise of treasure

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli is a poet from Nigeria who hails from Ode Itsekiri in the Delta State. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from the Delta State University and later went on to pursue his Master's degree at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.

Alújánjánkìján by Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Alújánjánkìján

Here are lyrics melting our souls 

Verses binding us whole 

Rhythms mending our holes 

        Alújánjánkìján

        So Clap your hands

       And make it sound like a gong

       Nod your heads  

        As our chorus throng  

And let us heed the lessons 

Each line brings along

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli is a poet from Nigeria who hails from Ode Itsekiri in the Delta State. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from the Delta State University and later went on to pursue his Master's degree at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.

Ewabusi by Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Ewabusi

Her beauty multiplied before my gaze 

Her charms increased before my stare  

Her allure heightened within my watch

As my moral compass was hers to control 

Ewabusi

Her glamour improved my sight 

Her candace enhanced my night 

Her appeal boosted my right  

As my values became her delight

Ewabusi

For your beauties never cease 

To snowballing before my stares

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli is a poet from Nigeria who hails from Ode Itsekiri in the Delta State. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from the Delta State University and later went on to pursue his Master's degree at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.

Oluropo by Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Oluropo

Read the pleadings of my love 

Decipher the affidavits of my thoughts 

Reply to the summons on my Cause

Till my appearance is written on your heart

Oluropo

Hear the motions from my heart 

Respond to the perpetual 

Applications of my affection

Till it becomes your ruling 

Binding us whole

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli is a poet from Nigeria who hails from Ode Itsekiri in the Delta State. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from the Delta State University and later went on to pursue his Master's degree at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.

Bit by Bit by Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Bit by bit

Our bodies began to move

 To the beat of Iwere drum 

Steps by steps 

Our feet jiggled the earth

 Surface with velocity 

So the rhythms 

 Merged with our souls 

The tempo flowed from our soles 

The cadence staired in our bones  

And we became synergized 

In the heritage of our glow

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli is a poet from Nigeria who hails from Ode Itsekiri in the Delta State. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from the Delta State University and later went on to pursue his Master's degree at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.

Chibugo by Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Chibugo

Here I am 

Beguiled and bullied 

Betrayed and beaten 

Still I remain courageous 

 Chibugo

Here I am 

Hunted and shunned  

Hated and scorned 

Yet I remain victorious 

For in the pride of my strength

lies the individualism of my mien

    Chibugo

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli

Laju Ereyitomi Oyewoli is a poet from Nigeria who hails from Ode Itsekiri in the Delta State. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from the Delta State University and later went on to pursue his Master's degree at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.

Memories of Three Months by Funso Aiyejina

When April ends, armed with its seasonal overnight kit

Loaded with intense and brief lilies in fill bloom

The fragile glow of the cassia tree lining the roads

To proclaim the beauty and brevity of human life,

I recall the nightmare of my brother’s death in his youth

On the last day of the month labeled cruel by the poet …

When April ends, armed with its seasonal overnight kit

I seek solace in the already evident month of May:

The birth month of our hopeful future continuous

When the flamboyant tree rooted in one of our pasts –

Constantly a target of elemental and human decrees –

Blooms forth in all its glory, paying no heed

To the presiding clusters of campus intellectuals

Who, borrowing a leaf from the resident colonies of bats

Ravage our green fruits long before the harvest season,

Blindly out-doing each other like crabs in barrels

Struggling for vantage rungs on the ladder of escape …

After the brief lilies and the fragile cassias of April

I seek solace in May with its flames of the forest

Which tower defiantly above cretins who have adopted

The belly-to-earth pose of the Ile-Ife campus lizards

Permanently glued to ground dirt in hopeful obeisance

When they should stand up, bloom and be counted as

Contestants for the flaming crown of struggle, as

Members in a procession of satiated priests in worship

As followers of Ogun returning triumphant from battle

With the palm fronds of peace in his left hand

And in his right the steaming sword of conquest

His carpet of glory leading into fields of hope

As a guaranteed link with the month of September:

The month of sunshine: the sunshine of harvest time

When the miracle of May is doubled and re-confirmed.

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Aftermath by Funso Aiyejina

(For Fatima Vatsa)

Each new life is a descendant of a graying form

Every new season a rebellion against an older norm

But the cactus survives the swing of the pendulum

Not through the collusive allegiance of a chameleon

But through a tenacity of will and a clarity of vision.

Poetry is rebellion, insists Neruda. The poet in rebellion

Is a cactus in bloom, nurtured by miracles in the subsoil.

Was the warrior-poet a desert cactus, a carrier of our anguish?

For you and others who knew them in less dangerous roles

As tenants, friends, husbands and fathers

Yours are grieving tongues and loving hearts

From which cynical questions may not be asked.

Mindful of your intense personal pains and tears

Over lost privileges, we join you in singing dirges

With which to coax them on to their now inevitable posting.

Blessed are they whose coups succeed:

They shall own the yams and wield the knives

And songs shall be erected naming them saviours

Until after the next night of the long knives …

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Limits III: Banks Of Reed by Christopher Okigbo

BANKS of reed.

Mountains of broken bottles.

& the mortar is not yet dry …

Silent the footfall

Soft as cat’s paw,

Sandalled in velvet,

in fur

So we must go,

Wearing evemist against the shoulders,

Trailing sun’s dust saw dust of combat,

With brand burning out at hand-end.

& the mortar is not yet dry …

Then we must sing

Tongue-tied without name or audience,

Making harmony among the branches.

And this is the crisis point,

The twilight moment between

sleep and waking;

And voice that is reborn transpires,

Not thro’ pores in the flesh,

but the soul’s back-bone.

Hurry on down –

Thro the high-arched gate –

Hurry on down

little stream to the lake;

Hurry on down –

Thro the cinder market –

Hurry on down

in the wake of the dream;

Hurry on down –

To rockpoint of CABLE

To pull by the rope

The big white elephant …

& the mortar is not yet dry

& the mortar is not yet dry…

and the dream wakes

and the voice fades

In the damp half light

like a shadow,

Not leaving a mark.

*Cable: Cable Point at Asaba, a sacred waterfront with rocky promontory, and terminal point of a traditional quinquennial pilgrimage.

Christopher Okigbo

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

Fragments Out Of The Deluge VI: He Stood In The Midst Of Them All by Christopher Okigbo

HE STOOD in the midst of them all

and appeared in true form,

He found them drunken, he found none

thirsty among them.

Who would add to your statue,

Or in your village accept you?

He fed them on seed wrapped in wonders,

And deemed it a truth-value system,

Man out of innocence,

And there was none thirsty among them.

Dots and brackets,

The model is not far off …

They cast him in mould of iron,

And asked him to do a rock-drill:

Man out of innocence-

He drilled with dumb bells about him.

And they took the key off

And they hid the key of …

that none may enter.

And they took the hot spoils off the battle,

And they shared the hot spoils among them:

Estates among them;

And they were the chosen

mongrel breeds,

With slogan in hand, of

won divination …

And you talk of the people,

And there is none thirsty among them.

Christopher Okigbo

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

May Ours Not Be by Funso Aiyejina

May ours not be like the story

of the Ear and the Mosquito;

but if it is, remember, o plunderers,

the Mosquito’s eternal vow of protest,

for we shall become like lice

forever in your seams,

ant-heads that even in death

burrow deep into the flesh,

chameleon faeces that cannot

be wiped off the feet,

and regenerating earthworms

that multiply by their pieces;

if there is no rainbow in the sky,

we know how to create one

by splashing water in the face of the sun;

if sleepers’ hands protect their ears,

mosquitoes must learn to bite at their legs

to awaken them into their broken pledges;

if treasure hunters disturb our Orukwu rockhill,

thunders will break behind our tongues of lightning

like arrows in flight…

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Awakening by Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

Rise.

Take your dream to the end of the street.

Then stretch the street.

Take it to the end of your dream.

Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan is a Nigerian professor and writer born on June 16, 1946 in Ogun State, Nigeria, who is well-known for his literary works that criticize societal issues and incorporate African traditional performances and surrealism in some of his plays. His plays often revolve around the struggle between good and evil. He is a didactic writer who aims to rectify the decaying state of society through his works. Additionally, he has written poetry under the pen name Okinba Launko.

So I Went Seeking by Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

So I went seeking

In the forest of the world

I went to the lion who roared and said

Come closer now, I’m hungry

I asked the elephant

Who picked me with his enormous

Trunk, and dropped me in a nowhere land

I asked the antelope

Who could not wait to answer—

But from what was he running so?

I asked the birds,

Starting with the peacock

Who merely laughed with a spread of wings

The tortoise kindly left word

That he’d gone to a feast

With his brother the politician out of jail

And I wore the length

Of the morning, walked the whole noon

Till I was worn, and it was dusk,

And so it was only

In the evening, far in the moonlight’s arms

That I found you, my

Lovely dream.

Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan is a Nigerian professor and writer born on June 16, 1946 in Ogun State, Nigeria, who is well-known for his literary works that criticize societal issues and incorporate African traditional performances and surrealism in some of his plays. His plays often revolve around the struggle between good and evil. He is a didactic writer who aims to rectify the decaying state of society through his works. Additionally, he has written poetry under the pen name Okinba Launko.

Release, a poem by Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

Iwapele, release me

it is time to offer my pollen to the wind

When the once-sacred shrines fill with vulgar masks

& the sibilating chorus of sycophants usurp the air

When Ogun’s hammer swings in desecrated hands

& wanton carnage spreads in the forge, to cowed applause

When the acid lips of falsehood lick the newspapers

& amidst the spittle, one swims alone

When the fists of power throttle the daily headlines

& amidst the babble, one strains alone

(& we all have our numerous reasons for silence:

we can stand by a furnace and shun the heat pleading that we are deaf to the bellows:

we can stand at peace by a grinding saw with the excuse that it is only morning yet, that we have not begun to chisel ourselves out nor shape the contours of our rage…)

Release me:

in my belly is the foetus of a struggling scream

I wait, tottering, on the horizon of slogans

Release me, the road is waiting…

Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan is a Nigerian professor and writer born on June 16, 1946 in Ogun State, Nigeria, who is well-known for his literary works that criticize societal issues and incorporate African traditional performances and surrealism in some of his plays. His plays often revolve around the struggle between good and evil. He is a didactic writer who aims to rectify the decaying state of society through his works. Additionally, he has written poetry under the pen name Okinba Launko.

Distances by Christopher Okigbo

(1964)

FROM FLESH into phantom on the horizontal stone I was the sole witness to my home coming…

Serene lights on the other balcony: redolent fountains bristling with signs –

But what does my divine rejoicing hold? A bowl of incense, a nest of fireflies?

I was the sole witness to my homecoming…

For in the inflorescence of the white chamber, a voice, from very far away, chanted, and the chamber descanted, the birthday of the earth, paddled me home through some dark labyrinth, from laughter to the dream.

Miner into my solitude, incarnate voice of the dream, you will go, with me as your chief acolyte, again into the ant-hill…

I was the sole witness to my homecoming…

Christopher Okigbo

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

Limits I: Suddenly Becoming Talkative by Christopher Okigbo

SUDDENLY becoming talkative
like weaverbird
Summoned at offside of
dream remembered

Between sleep and waking,

I hang up my egg-shells
To you of palm grove,
Upon whose bamboo towers hang
Dripping with yesterupwine

A tiger mask and nude spear …

Queen of the damp half light,
I have had my cleansing,
Emigrant with air-borne nose,
The he-goat-on-heat.

Christopher Okigbo

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

Limits IV: An Image Insists by Christopher Okigbo

AN IMAGE insists

from the flag pole of the heart,

The image distracts

with the cruelty of the rose …

My lioness

(No shield is lead plate against you)

Wound me with your sea-weed face,

blinded like a strong-room.

Distances of your

armpit-fragrance

Turn chloroform,

enough for my patience –

When you have finished,

and done up my stitches,

Wake me near the altar,

& this poem will be finished.

Christopher Okigbo

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

The Baboon on the Swing by Funso Aiyejina

Because the night is dark with no stars in sight

The baboon boasts he’s clad in the finest velvet

Forgetful of dawn – the epilogue to nightmare

Our charm to dispel the hold of evil nights

Invocation to affirm that no matter its flare

A lie will always remain a lie, destined

Like a false masquerade, to be unmasked.

Not really; history does not repeat itself.

Men do

And are thus repeated on history’s shelf

Like Onitobi of the skimpy loin-cloth

Champion wrestler in the riddle who

Wrestled his challengers to death

And dared harmattan to a final duel.

Now, who amongst us needs to be reminded

That one who throws such affronts at the wind

No matter the magnitude of his past miracles

No matter the number of stars on his epaulets

Such a man must come away from such a contest

Badly bruised, lock-jawed, needing treatment?

No, history does not repeat itself. Men do.

If therefore, the clay-god craves a dance of shame

Persistent in his demand for extended prime time

In the rain; oblige him, turn on the spotlights.

If the baboon insists, in spite of honest protests

Let him swing low and high, secure in his might.

Let him swing sweet chariot amongst the branches

There is a dry one lurking within the green foliage.

Remember the bullock who craved a round-trip aboard?

Didn’t he return as corn-beef, cured and packaged

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Limits II: For He Was A Shrub Among The Poplars by Christopher Okigbo

FOR HE WAS a shrub among the poplars

Needing more roots

More sap to grow to sunlight

Thirsting for sunlight

A low growth among the forest.

Into the soul

The selves extended their branches

Into the moments of each living hour

Feeling for audience

Straining thin among the echoes;

And out of the solitude

Voice and soul with selves unite

Riding the echoes

Horsemen of the apocalypse;

And crowned with one self

The name displays its foliage,

Hanging low

A green cloud above the forest.

Christopher Okigbo

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

Questions for Ada: Poem No. 4 by Ijeoma Umebinyuo

You call me

"sister"

not because you

are my blood

but because 

you understand 

the kind of tragedies 

we both have endured

to come back in to loving

ourselves

again

&

again. 

Ijeoma Umebinyuo

Ijeoma Umebinyuo is an artist and writer who was born in Nigeria but spent some of her childhood in America. During her holidays in her hometown in Eastern Nigeria, she developed a passion for storytelling after her grandfather introduced her to Igbo folklore. In 2015, she released her debut collection of poetry titled Questions for Ada.

The curse of being black with no direction by Sibusiso Adontsi

...

The curse of being black with no direction, 

lost with no resurrection, 

hopes of a future blurry, 

lost and it’s looking scary.

I wanna change the world, give birth to a star like Virgin Mary, 

be a star that shines brighter in life’s darkest alley. 

But how can you be early, when some can barely sleep, 

and hope they never keep because miseries are always deep? 

They always weep. 

Dead like Isaac without the holy sheep.

See, this is a story of a little girl trapped in a pain cell. 

She wanted to be something when she grows up, says her pen pal. 

She wanted to be a star, the female version of Denzel, 

Angel that fell from heaven straight to African hell.

She had a cute smile but her clothes had a terrible smell, 

’cause she was left to rot in the street like a leftover meal.

The story is real. It even made the devil crush to tears. 

Now she fantasizes about going beyond hemispheres, 

where people can live together without sharpening their spears. 

Because her dad was lost in war, her mama was lost in tears. 

Her sister wants more; her brother was ruled over by the beers. 

Yet she had the dream of being Lesotho’s first Britney Spears.

Now the future is blurry, left without the Son like Virgin Mary.

The burden is heavy like, “Why did I have to leave the belly?” 

Like, “Why did I have to be the sperm to reach the ovum early?”

She contemplates about her date with fate in the grave, 

with no shackles and chains on her feet — but she feels like a slave.

They call her an Ave, a shortcut meaning to street life. 

Divorced her home, she became an ex — never a housewife.

Blood, tears and sweat — that defines her life.

If she was still alive I would make her my wife.

Sibusiso Adontsi

Sibusiso Adontsi, Sadon, a rapper and poet from Lesotho, debuted his solo project "Love, Hate and Tears" in 2012. Three years later, he recorded his second album at the SABC studios and released it in June 2015. The album was distributed in Lesotho, South Africa, and Swaziland.

Pine Tree in Spring by Chinua Achebe

(for Leon Damas)

Pine tree

flag bearer

of green memory

across the breach of a desolate hour

Loyal tree

that stood guard

alone in austere emeraldry

over Nature’s recumbent standard

Pine tree

lost now in the shade

of traitors decked out flamboyantly

marching back unabashed to the colours they betrayed

Fine tree

erect and trustworthy

what school can teach me

your silent, stubborn fidelity?

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 modern African literature. He was born in Ogidi on 6 November 1930 and died in Massachusetts, USA on 21 March 2013.

911 by Segun Adekoya

The whole world was dazed and doped today

Though Jihadists jumped out of jealousy for joy.

Hit by two full suicide-driven hijacked planes,

The twin towers of the World Trade Centre

Caught fire, rocked, rumbled and tumbled into rubble.

Three thousand souls fled through their broken bodies.

Hardened by fear of death by steel-melting fire,

Some jumped, like fish out of singeing sea,

To sleep in a bed with a shroud-sheet;

Not cowards but desperadoes daring death dread itself

For a slender slice of a silver life.

Some grabbed their hand-sets and sang a swan-song,

Some said hurriedly their last love-life avowals,

Some prayed and steeled themselves for the Apocalypse;

Though the dread end was not down yet,

Darkness descended on all and, after, debris dust,

The earth was drenched with Doomsday drivel.

Verily, the explosions parodied Jah's Judgement prophecies,

The towering infernos held the promise of hell.

Rattled by lead in his den, the lion leapt

And ran and raged and roared raucously;

The forest caught the funk and cowered for fright,

Little game shuddered in their gaunt shelters

Wondering if they were safe from head-hunters’ raids.

Tall trees trembled and bowed their big brows.

Shrubs shook and shed their homage dues,

Feathered birds withdrew from the sky for bloodless birds

Whose flight slighted the flow of even butterflies.

Office files, too, flew and floated like confetti,

A billion bills littered the licked atmosphere

On the day hoodlums took a joystick for a toy;

The city skyline lost its loveliness and shine

To a cold cloud of ashes, rising and reeling,

Wreathed in thick palls of gloom, smoke and sorrow.

Streets turned streams of burning blood and minced meat.

The Big Apple was badly bruised this morning

Two rude thorns tore through its fresh golden flesh

And poured potent poison in its pith

Causing the star fruit to taste bitter and sour

As rapists in quick succession feasted on it.

They shat in the centre of the gardener's shed

And read rather rapidly the red of his eye.

New Yorkers had their fill of horrors and wonders,

America fed from a can of stone abd scorpion

Her tech power was tried by poor worms.

Her high heart was hurt by hungry hornets,

The headquarters of finance controllers was decapitated,

The elephant limped, his fat foot needle-riddled

The wrists of the Capital beast were wrenched by terrorists,

They bled, begging surgeons to stitch and staunch them.

The crown of the aviation industry cracked, stocks

Fell and jobs joined the crash and vanished

For passengers feared to board the birds and fly,

The President of prime mortals wore an indigo cloak.

Laden with hidden envy, emboldened by holy hatred,

Mean men blew a huge hole in the Pentagon.

Like their Lord who sent them Osama bin Laden

A cussed tiger too high for his rocky rider,

A monkey that outapes his foxy master

That falls foul of the nest-feathering lore of con fowls

And tries to trap all cocks and hens in corn laws,

They had a cause, but its course was coarse.

The peace they preached plummeted with the plunge,

The rider and the horse groaned in the ditch,

The gulf, the unappeasable gulf, gulped up all.

The rest is grief, mourning and tearing tears,

A smouldering rage rooting for an outlet,

The church cat in quest of the desert rat,

Light kissing the mouth of a dark tunnel

Only to lose the fight for love to might

The baulks all birth rites to write its sole right

To all possessions since the inception of sin.

This odd number is awesome, it wakes all

To hear its hell bell toll before its fall.

Segun Adekoya

Segun Adekoya is a retired professor of Literature  at the Department of English,  Obafemi Awolowo University,  Ile-Ife. He is the author of The Inner Eye: an Oriel on Wole Soyinka's Poety, anthologies of poetry, Guinea Bites and Sahel Blues and Chameleon and Chimeras. He is the first Chairman of the Osun State Chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors.

Johannesburg by Feyisayo Anjorin

Writing on the walls of history

in the city of gold

keeps you on your toes

fixes your eyes on your goals

Give the flesh to the soul

and give the spirit the key

but never sell your soul

in the city of gold

A word spoken

like an egg broken

break eggs in the city of gold

your secret whispers will soon be known

Taste the wine and the bile

drain the strength of your breath

but never end like the vile

in the city of gold

Feyisayo Anjorin

Feyisayo Anjorin is a multi-talented individual who has expertise in writing, directing, and acting. He received his training at AFDA, Johannesburg and has gained experience by working on various film and television projects in both Nigeria and South Africa.