Monday, 29 August 2011

THERE IS A TURNING IN THE ROAD

There is a turning in the road, trav’ller;
For a willing, courageous and tested flier.

If you must turn to the left of the road,
Do so knowing the world condemns your code.

If you must turn to the right of the same,
Do so knowing that the world takes new blame.

If you must make an about face turn there,
Do so as a trav’ller who knows the fare.

But if you must move on on that same road,
Move, O willing, courageous and tested code.

TOGETHER

You may not like my race
You may not take my face
But if you spot the goal
And would not mind the road
We may hit the field together

You may not like my world
You may not brave my kingdom
But if you touch the choice
And would not mind the noise
We may film the fair together

You may not like me there
You may not picture me here
But if you sense the wave
And would not mind the bait
We may sail the seas together

Thursday, 25 August 2011

THE PASTOR CRIED

The Pastor cried each time his Queen giggled
But his Queen laughed to solve the old riddle

It was dark for eyes but not for yielding limbs
So wise and so submissive in the wings

None could see the pouring rain and bright sun
But the feeling was there of duties done

This was before he slept like a baby
And she watched over the newborn HE

THE LESSON

The teacher opened her mouth
And spoke
The children opened their ears
And heard
There was only one key
The lesson

The teacher broke a piece of chalk
And taught
The children broke their pencils
And learnt
There was only one force
The lesson
ONE THING TO REMEMBER ABOUT TEACHING IS THAT THE TEACHER NEVER GROWS OLD. IN FACT SHE GROWS YOUNGER EACH TIME SHE PICKS UP A PENCIL AND OPENS HER MOUTH LIKE ONE OF HER PUPILS.

THE DANCE OF THE NUDE

The picture on my son’s wall violates my visit:
The blues from the wild west with four legs.
In the nude they dance on the wall:
I can’t guess when that drawing entered his poll,
Entered my son’s poll,
To find a place on the western wall of his parlour.

I thought my culture was violated upon first sight,
But when I entered the guest room I felt I was raped.
Indeed the nude dance started way back,
When his father said don’t misbehave or I’ll send you away…
From decency … Away!
From heaven to hell, from this Ka to that Ka.

And the day I stepped outside to view the sea,
Four legs danced on the porch like they came down from the wall:
Four human legs of equal shape and length as those on the wall.
And there too the walls were loaded so much,
With the nude parade so much
As coming from abroad like my learned son.

I am a prisoner of conscience within these walls,
And my youth-age visits me with a raised axe:
So I ask, what did I deprive you of in those days?
I denied you cinema going in good faith my love,
But not study time my love,
So I draw a clean landscape not a dirty mindscape.

But here this returnee has chained our landscape
And introduced multifaceted hills to the plain,
Thereby raping even the breast that gave him bread.
But what will weeping do to a drunken son in the nude?
Only sharpen his pencil of nude!
But that new drawing will not violate my eyes, never!

STONY AIDS

A battle to fight
A war to win
with stones
dead stones
living stones
In your hands
And in my hands too

A very hard stone
A healing stone
Of AIDS
In AIDS
With AIDS
Has killed the virus
And the world is healed

I carried the virus
When I fired the stigma
So positive
So activist
So upbeat
Against you brother
And yet it was I who died

When I dropped the stigma
I dropped the virus
So positive
So activist
So upbeat
In support of you sister
And I’m so much alive

Peace Talk

Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. President,
I am your President.

My name is Abraham, your father;
I love my family—as your father.

Jews, can you see me?
Arabs, can you see me?

Your peace is my peace!
Your pain is my pain!

Warn your children,
Not to go behind me.

Hatred is on my back,
Poverty is on my back.

NOBLE PRIZE

For guessing the correct answer,
You have a ticket to Mars!
Remember though
you don’t need a bath towel
you don’t need dollars …

And please take the space tongue
Before departure.
Period

Remember too
As soon as you shoot out
You move into statehood
And your word bears a flag
Unlike your bluff walk so rude

Hallo!
Over and out!

I too, have got shoes

Have you seen shoes on children here 
No shoes for other children 
No shoes for your children 
My uncle said to my dad 

I lost my shoes—small shoes 
from then on 
My feet crushed the thorns 
from then on 

The city was taken from me 
But not me from the city 
from then on 

Many years later my shoe remover died 
And I got back my shoes 
Bigger shoes—for crushing thorns 
from then on 

I cat walked in them 
And went to bed in them 
from then on 

I got the city back 
Even when I stayed there 
from then on 

Believe me I too have got shoes 
And I slip my feet in them 
But not for sleep anymore 
Yes I too have got shoes 

Other children wear shoes 
My children wear shoes 
Wear shoes why not 
Why not why not why not why not 

Shoes in the cot 
Shoes to school 
Shoes to the market 
Shoes to the office 
Why not wear shoes

How Are The Mighty Fallen (2 Samuel 1: 19-27)

19. All your glories, O Africa, are perishing on your heights. 
O, how did this happen? 

20. Publish it not in the streets of your exploiters, 
Those whose love can only enslave you, 
Before their daughters compose denigrating songs round your name. 

21. O mountains of vain elitism, 
May the bloody jewels you wear, 
Become hangmen’s ropes around your necks; 
And actually behead you. 
For it is with those heads that you dream of beheading others, 
Robbing us of all good heads. 

22. So many great muscles from the soil 
Have not returned from the dirty fields 
But dived in new soils sometimes by friendly blows. 

23. Need I name your loyal slaves? 
In life and in death they were African matter. 
Their new names ripped their tongues and lips 
For fun of the game. 

24. O daughters of Africa, 
Weep for your heroes, 
Those that fed you with proverbs around the harvest fire, 
When the forest swung to your tunes of love. 

25. But how did we lose those mighty stuff? 
No, they sleep on your height, they are not lost! 

26. Your eulogies are spoken in my blood. 
For if I ever knew love, 
You were my first teacher, 
My conscientiser. 

27. How indeed the mighty have fallen! 
I wish you had become a pacifist, 
For the weapons from carnal hands will not last!

GOD THE POET

God is my greatest Poet 
Because 
He nearly bursts my eardrums 
When He drums the words 
I AM 
I fix the metres of the world 
And keep spreading the rhythm 
Of my stars 
Period

Tuesday, 23 August 2011

God’s Star


God’s star
Is hiding behind God’s shadow
When the advancing sea
Collides with the returning sea
The unending music of an evening train
Washing with litter the sand on shore

The stars on my left
At Juba
And the stars on my right
At Cape Sierra
Signal the presence of night
Where I face the hiding star
With my lover

A million sea shells locate my wavelength
And chorus “Thanks for calling”

My star
Will soon shine
On my steps

The Vote Against AIDS


Our vote against ill health
Is a vote for world health
Our vote against AIDS
Is in aid of full health

Our vote for ill health
Is a vote for world death
Our vote supporting AIDS
Is in aid of full hell

Where we pledge for world health

Letter to Mandella: 11th February, 1990


Once in
            Some in you go in with you
            Your self
Your family
Your land
Sacrificing with you

Once out
            Some in you come out with you
            Your self
            Your family
            Your land
            Forgiving with you

One thing
            Yet knows no suffering
            Knows no boundaries
            Whether in our out of holes
            Is your voice crowned

You know
            All life in him
            All light in him
            All present in him
            All future in him

Standing free
            In your black
            In your white
            In your family
            In your land

Saves the land
So, brother, hold on!

Savage or Cabbage


Call me a savage
But give me a chance
To grow like you
And be a cabbage

Silence Please!


Your voice bounces through the building,
From bottom to top:
It hit my eardrums,
On the seventh floor,
And deadened my brain.

If you joined the choir,
You would sing bass;
But this building
Opts for another voice—
                        Silence!

Will you cast your vote?

spent jokes on them are really on you


spent
and done
you can go now
emancipation will dance
on your head hands and feet
fly into that colourless world body
your maker awaits your entry
emancipation will dance
on you like on them
go and be
spent

jokes
head first
then the rest
what you leave behind
is not yours but ours and theirs
jump out of this colourful world body
your friends await your approach
this is graduation for you
and them before you
not acted
jokes

on
switch on
those dead batteries
farewell to grave indifference
you now eat and drink to your maker
your last meal or dance have no wings for the flight
they are truly the meal and dance of worms
the first-tier welcome for a celebrity
dead batteries come alive
as you go
on

them
the object
of a spent force
are not forgotten there or here
regardless your acquired senile jargons
just leave them behind but also meet them ahead
your maker views your smartness there
with sheer shame and lament
denounce the punches
and you have
them

are
you there
theorist mathematician
your turn is here to be there
no retractions of aberrations body
the greatest of the great will welcome you
as he did solomon caulker before
davidson nicol as you choose
as their callings were
so yours
are

really
really really
a surprise awaits you
who walk on your blistered hands
like you would pick up spoons with jigger toes
god was quick to announce his shocks when he made you
no regrets just move on and take your place
golden outfits and tools galore
unlike those behind you
go and enjoy
really

on
then body
onto lower heights
to impregnate the unfertilised
then to higher heights to abort your babies
move on body in solemn answer to that great call
no denying to float a well-spiced body
no denying to float a hopeful soul
your gift of shoes
and robes are
on

you
is death
but me is life
or the beginning of life
for good eyes and ears and heart
spent jokes on them are really on you
journey with it on anxious feet
all queries fall on their backs
because me is life a-
gainst death for
you

RED


Red—the colour of life blood
From the sunshine
To the green-shine
And for filling those that lack

Red—the colour of the stars
Twinkling in the sky
Twinkling on the ground
Those meteors that jump over skies

Red—the colour of palm oil
Not just for health
Not just for wealth
But for beauty in the sun

Red—the colour of roses
On thorny stalks
In loving hearts
True love never short of thorns

Red—the colour of danger
On speedy roads
In bullet loads
Must not be made to rear its head

Red—the colour of prayer
To fight devils
To fight evil
Until black is turned to white

Monday, 22 August 2011

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A UNIVERSITY DON (To the Revd. Dr. Leslie E. T. Shyllon—on his written request before death that a poem be done in place of a sermon—Friday 20th November 2009)


You stars that sell the gloomy late evening news
Willing harbingers!
Have declared untold sleeplessness
On the eternal legal instance of nature and time fleeting time
To search into the night for truth in rumours
Did the summer leaves that took the Fall pass
Actually fall to the ground and turn into ash
This tale must not be sold in Freetown only
Where the Venetian palate is on top
And the tongue is non est in battle
This account is with the seller who died
Instantly after the big bang event
You who specialise in tall tales
Who know of stars and their names and their age
When they are active or inanimate
When they are living or uninteresting
What is the sealing on your knowledge here
What would his wife of those many years say
Or his children who still go by his word
Or his friends who communed with him daily
Or the students who in search of knowledge
Searched him daily to drink from the water of Lees
Or congregations that grappled with the methods
Of salvation for mankind
In the name of acknowledged religion
What has become an avowed misnomer
With friends spitting brimstone at friends
And the man would interject et tu Brute
Then stood Caesar to throw the dart at Brutus
Then fell Brutus to mark the start of war
But was there a seminar for students
On truth in the Chapel or polyclinic
Of how the hoi polloi are displaced
By the anointed intelligentsia
On the Altar of greed and sadism
No more than the Church historian can tell
And the itinerant, surreptitious
Vulture-like doves will come in their numbers
To flank the aisle with their gowns and skirts and rompers
In carefully graded sympathy
For me I am left to chew upon this truth
I have seen tears
But let compassion be showered from heaven
Yes passion in gentle drops on all heroes
For all are heroes in the arena
All are champions in the game of death
Who started dying the very day of birth
But did I clearly hear you say he died
How can they die who hoist the flag of truth
I mean truth in whatever shape or form
As long as other scholars feed on it
Kings, Noble Men, Entrepreneurs
And Seraphim All
As long as healers daydream by it
As long as Shepherds find their sheep by it
Let that passion fall with speed on them all
                                                            ...on them all
                                                                        ...on them all
                                                                                    ...on them all
                                                                                                ...on them all
                                                                                    ...on them all
                                                                        ...on them all
                                                            ...on them all

Saturday, 13 August 2011

I nƆ no im ej


Na fifti yia mama
De rakpala wit fiftin yia baba
Aw dεm kin tƆk am sεf
O lala
Na fifti tƆn fiftin dƆn fiftin tƆn fifti
Na yu-go-soba kƆntri
BƆt tide tide we dεm mεmba ram im ej
I mek lεk I dƆn soba

I bo siooo
Yu nƆ si we I was wit fufu wata
εn wεr im lεf fut afbak na im rayt fut
BƆt we I fifti so I mek lεk I chenj im stayl
I go insay kaka dεbul fƆ tek sεns twis mi an
εn kεr mi yon af pan wetin dεm dash wi
If ojukokoro nƆ day
Di nεks fiti yia go kam
εn mit wi nƆ tap fƆ tεtε
Pan bata okoto

A es mi ed εn opin mi yay
εn si se na di sem san we kƆmƆt
Di tεm we I bƆn
Na im kƆmƆt bak we I fifti so
Di sem tƆk we I tƆk bƆt wi mama wetman
Na im I tƆk igen tide
BƆt sƆntεm insεf go es im ed
εn si se
Di sem san we kƆmƆt da tεm we I bƆn
Na im kƆmƆt bak tide

Di wan we kik di bƆl
NƆ de fƆ si u kech am
Di wan we kech di bƆl
NƆ de fƆ si u kik am
LƆd o
Luk we mi lεf yay εn lεf yes
A no se wan de wan de
U kik o u kech o
Ɔl go brakεt na di kƆtin tri
A kamin o
Yεs o
Go tεl kƆzin se
Yεs o
Da kasada lif
Yεs o
DƆn go na im gƆngƆngƆn
I dƆn go na im gƆngƆngƆn
I dƆn go na im gƆngƆngƆn
LƆnta
LƆnta…o  lƆnta
LƆnta