The Moon and Me by Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

By the women knitting slow songs

into their washing

by the lovers spraying the water

with whispered words

by the shy birds lending their voices

from the purdah of sleepy branches

by the hoes hiding from the weariness

of men returned from the farm

softly

on the sand

the moon

spreads his mat for the children to sit on.

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.

End of the War by Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

They say,

a war only ends,

when another war begins:

the silence of the battlefield

heralds the widow’s anguish

For, to set questions

is not as hard as finding answers….

Our war has ended

because war is now with us

The deserted houses, the fallen rafters

breed the city’s slums

and the praise singers are not dead

they have only gone to the barracks ….

the butchers fill the parliaments ….

and the victims no longer die by bullets

but survive to pay the levies

Listen ___ they will tell you ___

to beat drums is mere children’s play

the adult’s is to start echoes ….

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.

Longing by Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

Life roars on, of course

elsewhere, as I rise and open the door.

And there is a moon, outside,

shining gently, as if afraid to be heard

It will not tell me of your whereabouts,

the moon does not believe that I miss you

and so, in the florescence of my office,

sitting alone with my poem,

I am alone and do not hear you pass

I miss your steps in the corridor of

the century, and the friends are fewer daily

to confide in, except this poem

Except this song that will not be sung.

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.

Wild Things by Femi Osofisan

(for Baroness Blixen)

ONE

Beautiful

& very touching

a lady fell in love with Africa

& made it a porcelain of her youth

scripting her adventurous life

into the yielding loom of the forests

lavish, breath-taking landscape

& always, in the background—

huge shadows—

walk the owners of the land

tamed

unlike the royal elephants

unlike the buffaloes

the numerous birds—

tamed

to serve the white lady

with their ever grinning teeth

TWO

The beautiful film is a hymn to wild things

to the white lady, refusing to bend to the male

commandments of colonial rule

or to the diktat of husband

in the conscripting laws of English marriage

or the shame of venereal disease

near fatal

always holding her head high

holding firm

even after the capricious betrayal of a safari lover

(who has to die later in a plane crash

so as to further test her dignity)

apt too, that in the end, the film tells us

that lions camp over the lover’s grave

(in tribute)

he who had always hunted them

paying homage to the kindred spirit

of this wild stranger in a wild land

even if he hunted and killed them

THREE

Oh all the beautiful things are wild

The lions as well as the unending plains

The water that will not be damned

But must return to Mombassa

The woman that will defy her womanhood

To pursue her husband into the very face of war

(& bring death back with her, in her vagina)

who would raise coffee beans

on highland, against the tested

(but obviously foolish) wisdom

of the native Kikuyus—

FOUR

Yes, Kikuyus, my Africans

not even a note for you in the lady’s last lament—

her poem is for the land forsaken

her two closest Africans being the boy

she healed of sores and taught to cook

(and then left behind)

and the faithful houseboy

so obviously lost

in a love that if spoken

would have begotten a scandal

FIVE

She left—and never came back, we’re told—

(what’s left to return to?)

This beautiful lady

who caught so much of the poetry

of Africa

and schooled the natives so well

in the art of bending

that many decades afterwards

after she and her countrymen have departed

black colonials now rule in Kikuyuland

served by bending servants,

black men armed with the same whips

well cut for black flesh

with the same half-literate cooks

decorating their kitchens, and

with the same mute lips, taught that

to speak of the love of freedom

is to be chased into the wilderness

or to shallow graves unknown to loving lions

unknown to the songs of today’s other

Blixens…

SIX

Yes, all the beautiful things are untamed

The beautiful life of a woman is

a paean, untamed,

to the goddess of wildness

& abandon in a wild colonial land

Some lives are as free and fierce as the lore of lions

(some lives, armed with guns…)

so fierce the film

so fierce and shattering

surging in ancient truths on the love of a woman

like the resurgence of ancient myth

the vast landscape

reminding us of Africa’s beauty

(especially where the natives have not been

trespassing)

& of Africa’s loss…

SEVEN

But why despair?

we’ve always been in the background

in the wild adventures of their books

Films such as this prolong the pain:

but do not despair—

We haven’t the means ourselves to show our lives

at their stark & grandiose moments:

but the day will come—

Moments when we are alone by ourselves

& are just being beautiful, by ourselves…

but the day will come—

No weapons of our own to show our pure sufferings

those moments when our faces are not just masks

but sensitive skins & tender voices:

Moments when our wounds bleed blood, red like

others, red like all blood…

but the day will come—

Ase, Edumare…

EIGHT

Here in Limoges

I mourn Africa

I mourn myself

in the mirror of strangers

I feel pain on behalf of all of us

who have remained nameless across the ages

like a vague and formless ghost

in the mirror of our guests

the shadow

against which the white man defines himself

NINE

Yes—our land is beautiful

even if, as they say,

we are mere receptacles of history

onlookers, who carry the bags

while the white men tame our lions

& our land…

That is the story they tell us

& our children:

but the day will come—

when Okinba will no longer

be mourning,

& history will be awake in our hands,

oh the day will come—

when Okinba will be singing

in his own voice

oh the day will come—

telling our own stories

singing our own songs.

Femi Osofisan 

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.

Paris Latin Quarter by Femi Osofisan (Okinba Launko)

Sweet Marie-Anne, she thought

Being French, intellectual and brunette

Entitled her, in any Parisian cafe

To prompt service—and she was

Probably right, (as the Policeman

Later confirmed)—always provided

The situation was normal, and

She herself did not let the race down.

So that afternoon, she said to me:

“Sit by me, mon cheri, and order

A drink!”—Well! The waiter came

As was his duty, only to stand aghast

At the unspeakable scandal of a

Full-blooded French woman kissing

This merde of a black man openly and

Full on the lips!—Purebred son of

The Galls, his first impulse

Was to smash his tray at the black head

And shriek out for help to the army of riot

Police permanently stationed on the streets

Of the Latin Quarter…—But

He was a non-violent man, and besides,

He had the customer’s tip to think of.

So he turned to me, swallowing hard, and

With controlled French politeness, he said:

“M’sieur, please sit OPPOSITE the lady—

“Yes, with the sacre table between you, face

To face—Or mon cul, dammit, I shall

Not serve you!”—And I was still wiping off

Her lipstick, wondering what to do, when my lady

Spoke, her face red with indignation: “But

You’re mistaken! This one’s not like the rest,

“Can’t you see! He’s a bon sauvage, and has

Written such brilliant essays in impeccable French

“On the phallus of—pardon, the merits of Negritude!

Show him my dear!” she turned to me, “Show how well

“You quote Molière, Corneille, and—”But the waiter

Was already smiling and bowing:I had passed my test.

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.

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.