Euphony of Myself by Oladehinde Ibikunle

The eulogy of my spirit

Which is the euphony of myself, 

My soul rises from His temple

Bearing a big lamp

Bows in worship of poetry.

I am that undaunted pen

That writes on an uneven tablet

Some rhetoric pentametres.

I am the poet of ludicrous limericks, 

I am the poet of witty didactics.

I write of carnality, I write of spirituality 

Of loathing and of loving.

I am the vibrant writer for the bored, 

I am the philosophical poet of the day

Writing melancholies of life's ephemiralty.

I am the bare footed bard

I am the mortal poet

With an indefatigable heart

Toiling an inexorable path

To the starry sky.

I write verses of elegaic dirge, 

I write odes to new moppet.

I am for the dead - I am for the living

The Sun has furiously frown'd at me-

At same me, the Sun has sedately smiled.

I am the worthless bagatelle; 

I am the rejected lad

I am the celebrated bard.

I thought of pleasures of Heaven

I thought of pains of Hell

If they were real, I would make one; 

But if not, I would make none.

I have felt the chagrin of failure

As much as the prestige of success, 

I moan'd and winced in distress

And I have rejoiced in great euphoria.

I am the rejected - I am the celebrated

I have recieved unmentionable hatred

As much as immeasureable love.

Thus, ask you me: 

Whence are all these, 

Whither are all these? 

I have not the answer

For I, myself, do not know.

But go you thither

To that soul of mine

That worships His god of poetry.

When I sleep

It is but poetry, 

When I am sad, let me write

For I will be happy.

When I am happy, let me write

For it will make me pensive.

Poetry is the path I tread

My head is full of it

My heart is brim'd of it

My whole soul is in it.

From poetry I am drunk

It controls my thought

It controls my life

Let my mouth be mute

My fingers and pen will never be mute.

An urgly physiognomy I possess

But my fingers are most beautiful

And for these reasons, a poet I be

I have no god, no love, no hobby

Poetry is my all.

I ate in the dish of poetry

Witty are mine own words, 

I drank from the eternal cup

Of water poison'd of poetry

I have been cursed of poetry

In it I live

And in it shall I die! 

Or let me die now

And wrap me with poems

And bare me to the cemetary

A coffin of poet, a grave of poet

I will be glad I die in poetry.

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Nabena

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

Abiku by J. P. Clark

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

J. P. Clark

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

Abiku by Wole Soyinka

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wole Soyinka

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

Hurrah for Thunder by Christopher Okigbo

WHATEVER happened to the elephant –
Hurrah for Thunder –

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

Alas! the elephant has fallen –
Hurrah for thunder –

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

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

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

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

Christopher Okigbo

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