NOT MY BUSINESS
.
They picked Akanni up one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep.
.
What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
.
They came one night
Booted the whole house awake
And dragged Danladi out,
Then off to a lengthy absence.
.
What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
.
Chinwe went to work one day
Only to find her job was gone:
No query, no warning, no probe –
Just one neat sack for a stainless record.
.
What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
.
And then one evening
As I sat down to eat my yam
A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.
The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn
Waiting, waiting in its usual silence.
.
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.
(From a survivor of the Abuja-Kaduna Train bomb; Mon., March 28, 2022)
Too many ills do a nation kill
Ills just as many as the corpses
That clutter every gutter
Of our callously mis-governed country
The roads are slaughter slabs
The rails only take us on terminal journeys
Every coach is a waiting coffin
The nation’s graveyards puke from unspeakable excess
“Bandits”, “terrorists”: a tardy government
Plays name-games while criminals
Rampage without restraint
Different name, same Nemesis
What do you call a nation
Where food is scarce
And peace is scarcer; where
Life sells at a thousand for one kobo?
Bandits raid the homestead
Bandits raid the streets
Bandits raid the schools
Bandits raid the temples
Bandits rack army barracks
Bandits pummel police stations. . . .
Our government fled long ago
Without leaving a forwarding address
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.
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.
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.
In the Beginning was not the Word
In the Word was the Beginning
.
Unwind the wind
Give rapid legs to the crouching leaf;
The horse of words has galloped
Through clouds, through thunder,
through roaring waters...
Throw open the door of your ears
.
Araba ponmbe ponmbe ponmbe
Araba ponmbe ponmbe ponmbe*
.
The Word, the Word, is an egg
From the nest oof hawk and dove
Its shell the sheath of anger's sword
Its yolk compostbed of bile and boon
.
The Word, the Word, is the
woodpecker's beak
Which rattles the jungle of silence
The cat's eye which pierces the garment of night
The Word, the Word, is the fearless
symmetry of zebra heights
The fiery hooffall of eloquent horses
The Word, the Word, is the armpit of stone
The groin of nodding marble
.
The Word, the Word, is the madness of the moon
The canine fury of barking tides
The Word, the Word, is the milky teeth
of coconut mountains
The joyful tears of dawn
.
Araba ponmbe ponmbe ponmbe
.
I see the Word
plumbing distant clouds for echoes of golden idioms
I see the Word
shaving mountainheads with razors of reason
I see the Word
on the lips of the gun, animally red
I see the Word
in parliaments of contending tongues
I see the Word
with ears of joy, stalks of swaying rapture
I see the Word
in the dream of a dream
in the dream of a dream [no stanza
break]
in the cloud which gathers the rain
in the rain which unchains the earth
.
Abuubutan Eja okun (Inexhaustible, Fish of the sea)
Abuubutan Eja osa (Inexhaustible, Fish of the lagoon)
Adunnni lenu (A joy to have in the mouth)
Ma dunni lorun (Dreadful to have around the neck)
.
Araba ponmbe ponmbe ponmbe
.
The Word, the Word, is the ashes of twilight
The rainbow of vagrant skies
The Word, the Word
is rocks and roots
sand and stone
rust and dust
love - - and lust
.
The Word is the peeping window of heady tails
The vital valley of maiden hiThe Word,
the Word, is the simmering song of the adze
The lyrical breath of fire on clay
The Word, the Word, is the hemhem of the barber's razor
The footsounds of the sun on the tarmac of the lake
.
Araba ponmbe ponmbe ponmbe
.
The Word is rain
The Word is dust
The Word is rainanddust
The Word is black
The Word is white
The Word is blackandwhite
The Word is life
The Word is death
The Word is lifeanddeath
Araba ponmbe ponmbe ponmbe
Give bony thoughts
The flesh of airy idioms
Let rounded laughters unknot the brow
Of wrinkled moments;
Scatter the Word
In the valley of the moon
Let harvestsongs reap the plenitude
Of waiting proverbs
In the Beginning was not the Word
In the Word was the Beginning
Araba ponmbe ponmbe ponmbe
Araba ponmbe ponmbe ponmbe
(to be performed with full musical accompaniment)
* This refrain is used for its sound (qua
performance) effect; it has no
translatable 'semantic' meaning.
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.
Deep green, my testament, as I forage
through this forest of vanished glories,
my memory one shell of naked echoes
Roots have shriveled in
earth's heat-harassed crypt
blighted leaves float in the wind
like flakes of careless scars
Long-limbed lumbermen have
laid low the loins of the land;
the Yes-I birds have left
with their rainbow songs
The desert marches towards the sea,
a haughty, implacable army . . .
Once (not too long ago)
I talked to trees in this forest
and trees talked back to me,
Deep green
NIYI OSUNDARE
Niyi Osundare was born in 1947 in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria. He is a prolific writer and highly valued literary critic. In December 2014, Osundare was awarded the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) for academic excellence.
The Lion stakes his claim
To the leadership of the pack
But the Antelopes remember
The ferocious pounce of his paws
The hyena says the crown is made for him
But the Impalas shudder at his lethal appetite
The Giraffe craves a place in the front
But his eyes are too far from the ground
When the Zebra says it's his right to lead
The pack points to the duplicity of his stripes
The Elephant trudges into the power tussle
But its colleagues dread his trampling feet
The warthog is too ugly
The rhino too riotous
And the pack thrashes around
Like a snake without a head
"Our need calls for a hybrid of habits",
Proclaims the Forest Sage,
"A little bit of a Lion
A little bit of a Lamb
Tough like a tiger, compassionate like a doe
Transparent like a river, mysterious like a lake
A leader who knows how to follow
Followers mindful of their right to lead"
NIYI OSUNDARE
Niyi Osundare was born in 1947 in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria. He is a prolific writer and highly valued literary critic. In December 2014, Osundare was awarded the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) for academic excellence.
The moon is playing hide-and-seek
Behind the clouds. A mellow smile
Lingers on the lips of the sky
Tides tease and tangle
At the water's edge. The buck eyes
The doe with a deep, alluring passion
Sun mo bi, Ologuro*
I am in the mood for love tonight
I can hear pigeons cooing
In their coop. I can hear alapandede**
Swapping notes in the shady eaves
Oge*** taunts the wind with its restless tail
In the narrow lane between the walls
The baobab's bulbous boon is swinging in the wind
Sun mo bi, Ologuro
I am in the mood for love tonight
Touch my tale
Smell my song
Behold the dotted lines
On the pages of my skin
Unfurl my flower
Unravel my rave
Sun mo bi, Ologuro
I am in the mood for love tonight
Stir little fires in the furrow between my ridges
Plant me, a song, in your loamy acres
Palm my memory, mold my mask
Let rasping leaves caress the fruit
At the branch's edge. Quench this quest
With the magic of murmuring moments
Sun mo bi, Ologuro
I am in the mood for love tonight
Settle this score with the argument
Of the heart. Uphold my plea. Roar
Heavenwards on the wings of my song
See my face beyond the mirror
Plumb my soul. Undread my dream.
Say my name. My name, my name. Say my name. . .
Sun mo bi, Ologuro
I am in the mood for love tonight
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.
Hunger walks the streets
With a retinue of naked ribs
Agbaga!, Hunger walks the streets
With a retinue of naked ribs
Behind him a legion of tax-gatherers
Bearing bleeding curses and flaying whips
Yam’s new name is “Mafowokanmi”*
Bread has raced past the laborer’s reach
Yes, yam’s new name is “Mafowokami”
While bread has sprinted past the laborer’s reach
There is no written law in this land
That desperate Want can never breach
Rumbling stomachs, dizzy motions
Sleepless eyes at war with the clock
Say, rumbling stomachs, dizzy motions
Sleepless eyes at war with the clock
Kwashiorkor children parade the roads
In a land beyond shame, immune to shock
A desperate mother gives up
Her baby for a bag of rice
Eewo**!, desperate mother gives up
Her baby for a bag of rice
Her only iro*** flutters in the wind
Held together by a league of lice
In this land of blind and soulless rulers
Hunger walks the streets, a cold, oblivious Emperor
Say, in this land of blind and soulless rulers
Hunger walks the streets, a cold, oblivious Emperor
To the few who have, this is a rich, caring nation
To the many so deprived, it is nothing short of a gigantic error
*Mafowokanmi - Touch me not
*Iro - A Yoruba woman's wrapper
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.
My Lord
Please tell me where to keep your bribe
Do I drop it in your venerable chambers
Or carry the heavy booty to your
immaculate mansion
Shall I bury it in the capacious water tank
In your well laundered backyard
Or will it breathe better in the septic tank
Since money can deodorize the smelliest crime
Shall I haul it up the attic
Between the ceiling and your lofty roof
Or shall I conjure the walls to open up
And swallow this sudden bounty from
your honest labour
Shall I give a billion to each of your paramours
The black, the light, the Fanta-yellow
They will surely know how to keep the loot
In places too remote for the sniffing dog
Or shall I use the particulars
Of your anonymous maidservants and manservants
With their names on overflowing bank accounts
While they famish like ownerless dogs
Shall I haul it all to your village
In the valley behind seven mountains
Where potholes swallow up the hugest jeep
And Penury leaves a scar on every house
My Lord
It will take the fastest machine
Many, many days to count this booty; and lucky bank bosses
May help themselves to a fraction of the loot
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe
The “last hope of the common man”
Has become the last bastion of the criminally rich
A terrible plague bestrides the land
Besieged by rapacious judges and venal lawyers
Behind the antiquated wig
And the slavish glove
The penguin gown and the obfuscating jargon
Is a rot and riot whose stench is choking the land
Behind the rituals and rotedrigmaroles
Old antics connive with new tricks
Behind the prim-and-proper costumes of masquerades
Corruption stands, naked, in its insolent impunity
For sale to the highest bidder
Interlocutory and perpetual injunctions
Opulent criminals shop for pliant judges
Protect the criminal, enshrine the crime
And Election Petition Tribunals
Ah, bless those goldmines and bottomless booties!
Scoundrel vote-riggers romp to electoral victory
All hail our buyable Bench and connivingBar
A million dollars in Their Lordship’s bedroom
A million euros in the parlor closet
Countless naira beneath the kitchen sink
Our courts are fast running out of Ghana-must-go’s*
The “Temple of Justice”
Is broken in every brick
The roof is roundly perforated
By termites of graft
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe
Judges doze in the courtroom
Having spent all night, counting money
and various “gifts”
And the Chief Justice looks on with tired eyes
As Corruption usurps his gavel.
Crime pays in this country
Corruption has its handsome rewards
Just one judgement sold to the richest bidder
Will catapult Judge& Lawyer to the Billionaires’ Club
The Law, they say, is an ass
Sometimes fast, sometimes slow
But the Law in Nigeria is a vulture
Fat on the cash-and-carry carrion of
murdered Conscience
Won gb’ebi f’alare
Won gb’are f’elebi**
They kill our trust in the common good
These Monsters of Mammon in their garish gowns
Unhappy the land
Where jobbers are judges
Where Impunity walks the streets
Like a large, invincible Demon
Come Sunday, they troop to the church
Friday, they mouth their mantra in pious mosques
But they pervert Justice all week long
And dig us deeper into the hellish hole
Nigeria is a huge corpse
With milling maggots on its wretched hulk
They prey every day, they prey every night
For the endless decomposition of our common soul
My Most HonourableLord
Just tell me where to keep your bribe.
*Ghana must go - Large, extremely tough bags used for carrying heavy cash in Nigeria
**Won gb'ebi f'alare/ Won gb’are f’elebi - They declare the innocent guilty They pronounce the guilty innocent
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.
I stay very long in the river
And I become a fish
With a head made of coral
And fins which tame the distance
Of billowing depths
I stay very long in the fish
And I become a mountain
With a mist-cradled crest
And feet carpeted by grass which
Sweetens the dawn with its glorious green
I stay very long on the mountain
And I become a bird
With a nest of polyglot straw
And songs which stir the ears
Of slumbering forests
I stay very long with the bird
And I become a road
With long dusty eyes
And limbs twining through the bramble
Like precocious pythons
I stay very long on the road
And I become a cigarette
Lighted both ends by powerful geysers,
Ash-winged firefly on nights
Of muffled darkness
I stay very long with the cigarette
And I become a clown
With a wide, painted face
And a belly stuffed to the brim
With rippling laughters
I stay very long with the clown
And I become a sage
With a twinkling beard
And fables which ply the yarn
Of grizzled memories
I stay very long with s-i-l-e-n-c-e
I become a Word
- Alupayida* Metamorphosis
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.
Some days know
the secret leaning of the heart
their auricles are acres of clay
watered by the kindest dew
their music the beat of every pulse
smiles grow in the garden of their lips
there is grace in their greeting
bliss in their blessing
a merciful moon sits
in the center of their night
their hours ripen
in the shadows of a generous sun
when they pass
houses throw open their doors
flowers drape them
in their rarest fragrance
for them tenderness is no treason
compassion is no constraint
some days
are not allergic to softness
some days
are not afraid of being human
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.
Heart’s Eye View
Left Paris
Several heartthrobs ago
Past Madrid
Now flying over Marrakech
One fast sweep
Over the sprawling Sahara
And on to the angel
Waiting by the sea
Every wingstep brings me
Closer to your wondrous arms
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.
Meeting
When I arrive in Nairobi
I will be wearing a face
Not so different from
The one you saw some seasons ago.
My spectacles, now bifocal,
Their frames round-rimmed with the years,
Still sit on the humble bridge
Of my nose. I peep through them
Like a sage stitching the rags
Of a broken age.
You will find a moustache
Blooming patiently on the cliff
Of my upper lip.
And a mane, now low-cropped,
triumphantly salt-and-pepper
Delectably groomed.
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 Anita Roddick Had I a voice I would sing your song Had I a tongue I would speak your praise Had I the time I would live for you But here...
