The Triumph of A Dream

Martin had a dream
Martin shared the dream
Many heard the dream
Few caught the dream

Some soaked the dream in wine
Some held the dream in arms
Others stained the dream with blood
Many gave up the dream
Few pursued the dream...
... with their blood

Sing the triumph of the dream
Triumph that no weapon could give
Triumph that blood could not secure
Tears made no difference
Words simply turned a waste of saliva
Only sweat gave the triumph

Not the sweat of fear
Nor the perspiration of anxiety
Sweat welled up by days in libraries
Sweat streamed out by months of doggedness
Hard was the sweat that gave the triumph

Triumph that weapons could not win
Triumph that blood could not secure
Triumph that words failed to bring
Triumph won simply by sweat
Sweat of hard work and diligence

Martin had a dream
Obama caught the dream
America now lives the dream

How Time Flies!

I can’t believe it’s 19 years since we first met

It’s fresh and feels like yesterday

I heard her tiny yet melodious voice 19 years ago

Saw and admired the sleeping beauty 19 years ago

She was my first experience of love-at-first-sight

I carried her in my arms and beheld a new me

I can’t believe it’s 19 years since I first loved her

Fist of Joy

On the last hurdle of the “teens” club

My baby has come of age

We‘ve grown together for 19 years

In smiles and frowns

In cry and laughter

In fears and joys

For 19 years

Like a character in a movie

I have watched my love

Grow from baby to lady

For 19 years

I have watched events shaping her life

And participated where I could

What has the “teens’ club” done to you?

What did you do with youthful exuberance?

Any stint with juvenile delinquency?

Anything to remedy within this last hurdle?

Should there be anything left to catch or let go

Before you clock-in on your second decade

It’s never too late to brace up.

My one and only is 19

The baby turned lady

Is gradually leaving the teenagers’ club

Happy Birthday Fisayo!

MONGUDU

The elephant dies and melts

Melts off in the bowels of Mongudu

The buffalo dies and melts

Melts off in the bowels of Mongudu

Mongudu the melting pot!

The melting pot of ancient days

Neither the thickness of the elephant’s skin

Nor the filthiness of the pig’s

Is a threat to Mongudu

Once on heat

Mongudu boils them all

Tell all the Mongudus

That the decadence of a pot

Is the concern of only the pot owner

Tell Mongudu

A water pot is good

Only for as long as it is clean

Water is not water

We may not know their sources

Rain is not river

All may not flow

A well is not a pool

Nor is it a pond

Even at boiling point

Some waters are still contagious

Tell Mongudu

The parable of the squirrel

Let her know

In what delights the mouth

Lies the death of the eater

Tell her

The pot is the eye of the body

May it see no evil.

Mongudu is a ready pot

As rough as the crocodile

As ugly as the Hippo

All melt in Mongudu

Could it be gluttony?

Perhaps it is avarice

Heat is all and one to her

Duration and intensity notwithstanding

Alas! Mongudu boils on

Then comes the day of reckoning

The news goes a beckoning

Mongudu is cold

But no one is bold

Some heat to share

With the melting pot of ancient days

Mongudu the melting pot dies

Alas! No melting pot for Mongudu

Mongudu stinks.

PITY PARTY

Is it not funny?

Doesn’t it sound odd?

That the living should mourn the dead

And take pity on them

For a good life cut short?

When our heroes lay down their weapons

And take a bow from worries

Reflections on happy past

Celebration of their legacy

Are true memorials they deserve

Tears or sorrowing is a disservice

When a well spent life

Is yielded back to the lender

Mourning is ingratitude

When a tortuous man in life

Is kindly relieved of his life

Why should the living mourn the dead?

When the dead are thankful of eternal rest

Let the living brood over their worries

FISAYO CELEBRATES YOUTH

As you celebrate today

Pay attention to my words

And make use of my instructions

On your journey in the next seven years

Teenage years are bridges

Bridges between childhood and adulthood

Teenage years are fun-filled

Funs are sometimes intoxicating

You can do and be all you want

But God must be in all

Teenage years are full of choices

You choose your friends

You choose your dress

You form your dreams

And shun some voices

But God must be in all

Every step on the teenage ladder

Is a cornerstone for your future

Be mindful my dear daughter

Each stone to put in measure

Youth is a wonderful time

Youth comes but once in a lifetime

Congratulations as the “Teenage Club” admits you today!

HEARTLESSNESS

Why say am heartless

When you it was

Who stole my heart

But refuse to give yours

Giving, the two edged blessing!

What difference it would have made

If only I had yours

To feel and to care

The pleasure would have been yours

Our days would have been made

The irony of selfishness!

It is doubly painful

Where the double heartiness

Is not doubly gainful

Even in excessive caution

Could be a loss of portion

Let go and let me

One broken heart

Two suffocating hearts

The former seem the better

Let go and spare me

Had I yours as you have mine

The pleasure would have been thine

If you say am heartless

You are right, doubtless

Away you stole my heart

With yours you refused to part

GENESIS

In the beginning…

What is the beginning ?

Nothing new under the earth

How can it be ?

Because the beginning is in the end

In the end ?

The beginning is in the end

End of what ?

That is the question

The answer to which is ?

The end of the contrary

Help me out !

The meaning of genesis is found

At the tail of end

Your meaning ?

The end has a beginning

A beginning has an end

And so ?

As the birth is the end of conception

So it is the beginning of life

As death ends a life span

It begins the journey into eternity

Genesis is only meaningful

Where there is an end

LIFE DEFINED

What shall it profit a man

If he gives what he can not keep

To have what he could not get?

Life for wealth

Wealth for life

Both shall come to an end

Of what use is life devoid of wealth?

Of what gain is wealth without life?

No robbery in barter!

Should wealth be the gain of a lifetime

Life may as well be the cost of wealth

Life isn’t too much cost for wealth

To have a wretched long life

Or a short-lived affluent life?

It all depends on why we live!

Worth dying for, worth living for

Why shouldn’t man live as he wants

If his wants are noble ?

Why shouldn’t man quit living

If his journey is uneventful?

With this life divine

Where the race is not to the swift

Nor the battle to the strong

What is the place of man

In his plight in life?

DADDY

If only i had known

The third blow would be the last

I would have asked my questions

And probably love you more

Perhaps I should have known !

You were never so down

But I kept to your word

A hundred years you said

Who would have known ?

You never said goodbye

I only said so long

Till a day or two

I long so much for them

The praise songs from your lips

The laughter I so much loved

The caring you for her

My much beloved daughter

If only I had known

In the bits of farewell

In your prolonged illness

In your incessant prayers

The old resurgent faces

You would have had my all

Since myself I always have

And my seeds with me

Even when you are gone

But I never knew!

Oh! I never knew

The reason you loved me much

And things you’d have me do

To please your parting soul

I would you were here

Your quiet time to share

Interceding for your homestead

That is so much burdened

By the devourers you always knew

Sleep not daddy

A word or two will do

AS THOUGH

Four years ago you left

As though you never cared

As though you never loved

As though it weren’t you

It must have been mighty

That tore your caring arm

And curbed your will to be

To see your Great-Grands

Supposing such weren’t true

That sent you visiting offspring

In all the crannies of the world

And sent your manly eyes a –tearful

On the endless expectation of one

Your departure wouldn’t have mattered

What be thy disposition thence

Since journeys you can not make

And hosting you dare not do

The next three score years

It must have been lonely

Oh! Daddy I wish I knew

What has since become

Of your mirthful self

The one I used to love

Probably gone in loneliness

Or so ever broadened

By the heavenly host

Or even renewed

In the new seeds that grow

In the fresh dreams we share

Our dreams!

Four years ago!

As though it were yesterday

As though it were a dream

As though you were a journeying

Sleep on Daddy

Till all are brought together

At the white throne

Of the all mighty Mighty

TIME CHANGES

Where is permanence

In this transient world ?

We have come to leave

And so are our affairs

Time, the architect of change

Like a river, carries souls apart

Like the proverbial twenty kids

That can not play for twenty years

Dreams are lost in time

Think of the stolen hours of pleasure

That gives birth to intimacy

Or the slippery fish from there begotten

Should the quest for variety win

The seldom fashion indulgence

Is often the father of vogue

Differences creep in untold

As the dusk fizzles into dawn

So the chanced sumptuous meals

Gradually courts the taste

Chanced is then swallowed up in favourites

Alienating twins that sucked same breasts

Greatest is the crime of indifference

Where differences are in contention

Differences unlike the truth

Know not the route of constancy

In metamorphosis or soldiering wade

BANKY THE BANKER

Join me to pamper

Pamper the dove I cherish

In her I bank my treasure

Bank your gold

Bank your silver

A heart is all I have to bank

Bank it my Dove

Where it is safest

Not in the way of “FORUMS”

Where distress can ravage it

Nor in the manners of “JEZEBELS”

Easily lured away by vanity

Bank it as if it were yours

For yours indeed it is

Bank it my sweet dove

Join me to pamper it

My deposit is fixed

Bank it and use at will

Turn it over, let it yield

The interest therefrom is my interest

When you have banked that

There is more to bank

Bank the sweet memories we’ll share

Bank the dreams we pamper

Bank the hope we nurture

Bank E ( Bank it )

It is our treasure

Do not pamper my errors

Nor bank my frailties

From this world acquired

In same to be relinquished

Short-comings when realized

Short-goings become

Short-goings are short-gone

Want to join me to pamper ?

Come let us pamper !

Pamper my only banker

Join me to pamper her

For she’s all I have

SEASON OF THIRST

How could the fall of a pin

Have raised this much dust?

Why should the leaves

In such shameful disguise

Boldly embrace a powdery look?

When the sole can not predict

Where the hard surface lies

And the ankles continuously swim

In the ocean of dust

The shoe can not boast

Of any other colour but brown

Had you the courage and time

To keep the flower beds wet

And the godliness to keep your dress clean

Have you the grace to stop the wind?

Much needed yet much dreaded

Soothing on flesh

Ageing on hair and eyelids

What volume of showers

Will cake this dust

That is evasively jolted to dance

Burying the showers

In the depth of its bowels

Eight inches below dust level?

The land is thirsty!

Thirsty, let it be!

Till it has accounted

Where went the waters

Of the season of floods.

THE BURDEN OF FREEDOM

It’s a free world , isn’t it?

A free world indeed!

Then let him talk that craves freedom

All I preach is bounds.

Freedom corrupts!

Oh, sweet taste of freedom

The taste of freedom the taste of sugar

The taste of sugar the taste of pile

Bounds!

Check the burden of freedom

On that sick head

That talks at will and acts at will

Ask him that’s free to drink

What he finds in the gutters

Or what attracts in folly

My neighbour’s freedom to talk

Earned him a swollen face

The lady that boasts of freedom

Will soon be found a whore

With the freedom to take

The “thieftancy” title becomes extinct

Think of the burden of freedom

Tell me where you stand

DON’T GIVE

GIFTS

Don’t give me

If you wont miss it

Nor dash me

If it costs you nothing

My ingratitude may vex you

Such is the ingrate in me

That insists on motive

If I be for dumping

The thanks to me is due

Be satisfied with the good riddance

SHIT

Don’t give me

If you won’t take it

I lack a cesspit tank

My excuse for instant return

EXCUSE

Don’t give me

If it won’t hold waters

Of it, there are a thousand and one

Where a will is not.

Not Guilty

Not guilty my Lord!

Though I drank of this gourd

That men enforced on me

Not guilty is my plea

For primary activities

Not guilty my plea

For secondary encouragement

Not guilty my plea

For graduated tutorship

And post graduated effrontery

Not guilty!

Not guilty my Lord!

Ask the cocks that crow

If I don’t wake to time

Ask my hard palms

If they ever spared a task

Inquire from the twinkling stars

How long they wait to see me home

Ask my stormy brain

If it ever sleeps

Had I the chance

I could be good

Let his Excellency bear me witness

My guilt, a lack of silver spoon

To dine with the eminent

My guilt is the refusal

To tow their short-cut

HOME ALONE

My faithful companion

Creeps in at the nick of time

To consecrate to himself

My toilsome flesh and soul

And as a compelling sleep

The sailor to the dreamland

Courts me on the intimate journey

Where rest opens door to creation

And as we alight at the creator’s realm

My fangs all buried

In my pouting pen

Oppressing the pleading papers

Loneliness, I hear your silent steps

I can not miss your sweet fragrance

You are my friend of intuition

I can not but heed your call

When I seem in crowd to be

With you in my world of thought

I am all alone

In spite of crowd or hall of fame

Chancing upon let downs

Riding upon want of tasks

The cleansing tonic apply

All broken hearts and idleness refined

How I love your solitary camps

How I crave for hermitage

The whole world for loneliness

Is not a balanced barter

For in loneliness, the world came to be

Who calls you what you are not?

Cast your spell on me at will

Take me to my root

Make a Moses of me

Impart the wilderness grace

Of forty days and nights

Take me beyond the ephemeral

To the busy world of loneliness

The place to be with the Alpha

ANCESTRAL LINEAGE

Then, the father of Now

Later, the grandchild of Then

Now, the grandfather of Never

Later, the only child of the indolent

Whenever it is Now

Never say Later

Because Now was Then

Each blessed hour

Has its sufficient trial

Now is that tomorrow

Today, the father of tomorrow

Now, the great architect

The quiet irreverent moulder

That moulds the dreaded tomorrow

The otherwise pampered builder

That builds the hope-full tomorrow

Now is the tomorrow

That scared your today

And taunted your yesterday

For those unsettled scores

All remnants of yester’s stores

Do not stop me again!

Now is the tomorrow

That yesterday, I craved to gain

Welcome tomorrow!

MY MOTHER’S DAUGHTER

I hardly know my mother’s daughter

I rarely see her face

Her tiny braids and shaded views

Enshrine her family looks

My head revolves as cone

To recall her family tone

To every blessed event

She has a peculiar accent

Her height is ever undulating

All resting on her sole

I guess she’s half my height

When she’s true to her soul

I dare not describe her

The attending devilish bouts

On her chameleon flesh

Recalls the devil’s master scheme

Who knows my mother’s daughter?

TO THE GENTLE STATESMAN

Before the pilot’s arrival

Open your chest of treasure

In me deposit with pleasure

These grey of yester years

Tucked away in pairs

For the journey it can not boost

Reflect on the hood of man

That I call a beast of burden

Cud forth on husbandry

Declare his wholesome steering

In temperance of wad resides?

Recall the price of sanctity

In the daily profession

Of labour and dignity

Where corruption is sanity

Release the steady current

That stirred your rugged turbine

And kindle the fire in me

You strolled with many a Khaki

Converged with flowing robes

But kept your hand unsoiled

Won’t you rather vomit

That pill for total man

Before you cross the abyss?

Shall the pill be mine

If I see you taken away?

ONCE UPON A ROLL CALL

Once upon a roll call

The famous call in June

The sucking month of June

Of the Big, the Small and the Posh

The Racer and the loader

The good, the bad, the rickety

The beautiful and the ugly

Tokunboh and Kaduncome

Set like a host of ants

In response to the General’s call

To the clash of Titans

Titans of Oyeh and Money

The monthful calls at stations

On daily and nightly basis

The crawly rows of racers

The bedly turns of Commuter buses

And mobby journeys of trekkers

On the oily soil of WAZOBIA

Oh! If blood were fuel

And eyes were bulbs

What a graveyard be WAZOBIA

What a suffocation be its darkness

Oh the Oyeh month of roll call!

Hear my neighbour’s call

THE VILLAGE CATECHIST

One evil have I seen in town

Two have I observed

Rings on men’s ears

That women resist to wear

Loin cloth on beauty pageant

That aborigines have made extinct

The bush is fresh

My horn is green

An original bush born

Free from townish mesh

Am bush but proud of taste

Green horn to dirt and haste

For when I blow my nose

I need not keep the waste

Unlike the town born chief

Who wraps his in kerchief

Something mannerless in town

Talks are fixed for meals

Details talked on spirits

But in serene bushes

Food and chats are variants

Nor is wine for salients

In town is something else

The dangerous execution of health

In the sucking spree of mouth

Exchange of salivary gland

Of germs and smell in bout

Blind profession of lust so bland

There is an evil in everything

Everything that’s done in town

The stiffened smile for modesty

The apology for sneezing

All images of plastic beauty

That’s worn the city gown

All these are grievous evils

The bush is fresh

Forget the horn

The townish torn

Is sufficient forlorn

VISITORS

Visitors come in all shapes and sizes

They come with various schemes and tactics

They come for obvious and obscure reasons

They come to take and to give

When fear comes calling how do you respond?

Does he meet “Do not disturb” on your door?

Do you place a “Welcome mat” at the door?

Do you simply slam the door on his face?

Do not dialogue with fear my dear

Nor prepare a table before him

Do not entertain fear

Simply slam the door on his face

Fear is an insatiable guest

Give him a seat, he will ask for a bed

He will take your rest

And give worry in return

He will take you on a journey

Through the memory lane

Via your inabilities and past failures

He will make a mountain of your mole hill

And deprive you of a good night rest

In the morning, he will demand tears

Tears so much he can’t consume all alone

He will invite friends and make a pity party

Destroy your confidence and leave you least hearty

When fear comes knocking at your door

As he will, more often than not

Brace up and kick him off

Do that which you fear to do

Strangely familiar

How could someone so strange

Be so familiar?

How could someone so young

Be so bold

How could something so new

Be so old

Suppose we have met before

May be in the dream land

May be in my first sojourn upon this terrain

Suppose she’s my twin sister

Suppose she’s the bone of my bone

Oh, she’s such a strangely familiar fellow.

Fellow she is

Jolly she is

Strange she’s not

How my spirit longs for her

How my ears itch for her voice

How the whole of me pains at her absence

Strange let her be

Yet we must link

These two hearts could beat as one

Oh, what a sweet thought.

LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH

Currency has ascended between us

Like Achebe’s pounded yam

Perhaps when the feast is done

We shall, like the two in-laws

Ourselves uncovered gluttonous

Rescue our crushed sacred vow

Beneath the massive weight of coins

And from its battered image

The left-over inscription my groan

“For better for worse”

THE JOY OF LOVE

I must yet drink

From the abundance

Of your brewery

Only now with caution

That I be not drunk

Filled but not intoxicated

Lies the joy of love

ONLY ONE LOVE

Take care prodigal!

Only one love

Love has no duplicate

When it becomes weary

Like the proverbial dog that barks

Rather than wag its tail

Waiting is a dangerous game!

Only one love

One fragile love

Expectantly waiting on end

For love that never calls

From its new fertile ground

Asking is betrayal of trust

Only one love

One vulnerable love

Asking for notes and signs

That are never dropped

To bury the lingering ailing care

Wondering! The haunting shadow

Only one love

One intimate love

Wondering where she wanders

While you languish un-mourned

Sharing the sacred cake?

Silence is a dumb game

Only one love

One personal love

Suspense of refusal

In declaration of stand

A camouflage of innocence

Think prodigal, think!

Else you squander it

The pain of self denial

The agony of a cuckold

The trauma of shattered dreams

The weak foundation for tomorrow

Only one love

One priceless love

GOODNIGHT LOVE

Love never dies

Nor is so long for ever

At your end

Love may wear out

At the other bend

With new freshness it sprouts

Immortal love!

That night in Asia

I know is morn in Africa

For love there are dusks

But never the dust

By human efforts love is dammed

To cease or flow in trickles

But even then

The fountain never runs dry

When tenderness is not torrential

The flow is probably hampered

To irrigate a new found land

‘Cause love never dies

When your river is in flood

Gently tend my wounds

And wake me to a dawn of love

ELI BARCHE

Enough of your “Brother”!

You offspring of my peers

I’m fed full through my ears

I now can not but bother

To watch the world pass by?

Expecting a lass to tie?

A thousand and one is gone

But none of them is done

The one that’s fair to hold

Has not the virtue of old

The virtuous that filtered in

Are fair only within

“The fair-within” they say

I fear the fair-without

May take over someday

As aesthetic venom sprout

I hate to make a choice

Give the magic wand

The cartilaginous band

To forge a Siamese choice

Eligible to choose!

From many unwanted goose

With opened or closed eyes made

A choice is still a choice.

TIMELESSNESS

What is time?

What care I for time?

Time by time upon time is meaningless!

Time has no variant in darkness

As it is in the morn,

So is the day and eve alike

I heard it on mic

“Let there be light”

I say it with same allusion

In darkness is no creation

In darkness is timelessness

Light is time

Time is light

Light is sight

Sight is light

Sight is prime

Sightlessness is timelessness

A thousand bulbs is all a waste

When they are not on for warmth

Wills are wishes where sight is amiss

A sightless will is surrendered to guides

I go wherever they will

Eat by aroma and taste

And dress to suit my guide

Are you welcome to my world?

Timelessness! A world of waste.

MESSIAH

Will faith be found on my return?

Where have all the faithful gone?

Messiah’s voice itself was worn

Will faith be found on my return?

The response lacked conviction

But to Golgotha they trudged on

Oh! Equivocal month of June

The hope of ninety-three

Thou art not the least of moons

Laced with victorious defeat

Aground the power drunk feet

About the wake of Golgothaic show

Excesseive shorts of proverbial blow

Gave birth to the first disappearance

Punctuated by the triumphant entry

The trigger of several effrontery

Offensive bars and cuffs

Explosive cars and troughs

Have, since Messiah’s cup

Made a drunk of many a pop

Till his glorious return

Why wait the said Messiah

While yet others could be

He did in his desire

Express to meet the faithful

When as a thief he comes

But who above can go

To bring NADECO chiefs

Tinubu, Shoyinka, Enahoro

Akinrinade, in brief?

He did in his desire

Express to meet the faithful

When as a thief he comes

Or to the mother Earth’s belly

To raise its faithful Tains

Rewane, Kudi, Ajasin?

To mourn only the plain

He did in his desire

Express to meet the faithful

When as a thief he comes

Or yet to the dungeons go

The critical tongues to free

Kokori and host of comrades

Falae and company

Obasanjo and compatriots

Dasuki and the thrones

He did in his desire

Express to meet the faithful

When as a thief he comes

Will none a friend be left

No matter how unfaithful?

A warm embrace to give

Even if it’s a Judas’ kiss

When messiah confounds the fool?

He did in his desire

Express to meet the faithful

When as a thief he comes

Saro Wiwa is gone

Ibrahim Abacha atoned

Fela slept for fun

Bullets perforated Elegbede home

Iloputaife abandoned his sheep

Zik is permanently silent

Suliat tried but went

She joined the Omosholas

Claud Ake went en mass

On his last journey

Yaradua gave up his colony

As many others that owned

He did in his desire

Express to meet the faithful

When as a thief he comes

Is there a one untouched

Since his mandate a botched?

I know not what to sing

Of Diya and company

But tell of tyranny

I know of many that singe

When, oh coming messiah

Will thou restore thy kingdom

The faithful save from bomb?

Come, oh messiah come!

Let thy kingdom come

Faces are blocks

Faces are blocks

Smoke screen kind

Brick walls are rough

Yet plain to be rough

‘Tis not so with faces

The picture screen is plain

Ever faithful to receptions

Ever so plain, ever so shaky

They never mince to say

The state of their heart

Walls are plain

Faces are vain

In shiny and plain looks

The scathed and coated text

Are countenances of walls

And the benevolence of builders

‘Tis not so with faces

That cover the benevolence of the builder

Smiling faces on evil minds

Sweetened mouth dressing caustic heart

Such a mixture of honey and lime

That faces often enshrine

SUPPOSE

These glittering fragments

As though of glass

Hanging everywhere

High above my head

Remind me of a birth

These glittering fragments

Suppose they had been one

One with the night escort

Suppose the night escort

Had been the big reservoir

The reservoir of water

Suppose the day escort

In anger that the former

May dull its scorching prowess

Had collided with the ancient reservoir

Suppose the roaring thunder

And the flashing grenade

Plus the heavy spittle

Were but echoes and vision

Of the great rivalry

Suppose these little fragments

Glittering in the sky

Were shreds of the grenades

Or particles from the whole

A whole mother moon

Suppose they were the children

Who scared stiff of death

Deserted mother moon

Suppose their glittering appearance

Were just a barricade

A hedge for the moon

Like the corporals

Surround our Generals

Suppose they could glue

To a very big blue

What a great bloom

For the world to view!

ONE HUNDRED EXCUSES

Oh! That I may sing

Sing to my lord

But I have not

The voice of angels

And the accompaniments

Like Heaven’s

Oh! That I may dance

Dance for my God

But I have not

The swiftness of feet

Nor the coil of a snake

That resided in David

Who has understood

The anchor of the sky

Or comprehended the reservoir

Of its great waters?

And the triggers

Of its scaring Bazookas

Flashing through the sky

Who can tell

Of its great electricity

Its distributive accuracy

To the warmer

The fluorescent

And the twinkling eyes

Oh that I may know!

How to please the lord

Yes! I can yet sing

Sing of the Lord

The giver of voice

I must yet dance

The dance of the Lord

The giver of legs

Accompanied with rhythms

Rhythms from my palms.

HEART BEAT

This heart beats fast!

Once upon a joyous day

10,958 days to be plain

Of a noble start so gay

A humble start so gay

Flimsy days of restlessness

Sluggish months of idleness

Pretty years of ignorance

Make up the early five

Five to twelve the prime of age

Labourious days at five began

With “Teacher’s waiting at the door”

With broken slumbers, scaring canes

Seven to one: the time in cage

A thorny page of life unveiled

But yet I knew not why

I was so thoroughly schooled

Oh memorable days of teens!

Oh bountiful grace of God!

Away from home in hostels

The hostels like hotels

The hostels like dens

With bullies handling powers

Familiar turns of boards

My debut at conscious learning

Anxiety of PHY-CHEM-BI

The often delinquency

Excessive subject stabbing

Frivolous drunken moments

Characterised my teenage years

Most shameful of recklessness

But I knew in half

What reason I did school

The citadel of Bachelors

The last hurdle to meal tickets

The crucial mould of men

That sifts the boys from men

To consolidate the yester years

To redeem the years of ignorance

And months of idleness

Were two seasons elusive

But when I soon regained

I went, I saw and won

And really loved the trade

But lost in that euphoria

A costly step at the rear

Ensnared my glorious plight

My tender soul affright

My budding talent, the burdened

The elephant headed burden

At just a twenty and two

Manly struggle thus began

Where it ought to end

A walk before a crawl

A jump before a walk

For whatsoever reason

Retrospective strides begotten

The past eight graphed it thus

Wavering careers and staccato jobs

Unsettled homes and separate squats

While life is almost half past dawn

Ensnaring steps aside

Could life have been the better?

Peers should prove the latter

This storm I must weather

As the needle threads the cloth

These pieces at once to gather

Never ceasing in transit

My thread at all shall stare

CAUTION

Fellows on this sea of life!

How strong be your ship

To weather this rough tempest?

Need we mention this fellow-ship ?

Of it we had no choice

But one another to admonish

Courage brothers do not stumble *

Hard be my ship brother

The like of which is none

Hardship abounds a lot sister

The price of Adamic nature

Courage sister do not stumble

Though your road be rough and dark *

And you in the ship of scholars

PSYCHOPHILENGINETROLYSIS

How fare you?

I hear the more you know

The much more abound to know

When much wisdom avails sorrow

And more knowledge more grief

Courage brothers do not stumble

This unequal yoke sister

The least of ships for courting

Has wrecked a many home

Should time be smiling on you brother

Your ship to court can mend

There is a star *

To guide you homeward

The strength in number

Pursues a lot

To the ship of member

Multitudinous craze for power

Disguised in love of fellowship

Soon uncovered in cultship

Unleash the sting of death

Like school of angry bees

Membership is easier won than lost

Yet, never too late to burst

There’s a star to guide you homeward *

Trust in God and do the right

Brothers in fellowship

Fellowship in hardship

Hardship in scholarship

Scholarship in membership

Membership in cultship

Cultship in courtship

Cultship in leadership

Leadership to ownership

Ponder awhile and mend your ship

Mend your ship before it wrecks

Trust in God and do the right *

OLUWARANTIMI

Suppose the Lord had not

REMEMBERED

When the world did not

But wrote her off

Dubbed her womb repellent

And thought sour of her breast

She wouldn’t have said

OLUWARANTIMI

If the Lord had not

REMEMBERED

As she cried to him

When the boy was withering

Like a sun-scorched rose

As the world gazed helpless

He would have been planted

Like a seed in a barren land

It wouldn’t have been safe to say

OLUWARANTIMI

But the LORD REMEMBERS

In the darkest hour

Of our nights

The epileptic journeys of life

In the fluctuating dreams

And hopes

In various mirages of goals

Something is certain

He will grant

We will heave a sigh

Of relief

If we will but say

OLUWARANTIMI

FATHERHOOD

Fagged out as I returned

From a withering day

Like a Fulani cattle

All the way from the North

Peace and quiet I sought

After a whole day’s job

A mile away from home

The screams and shrilling noise

The decking-pounding feet

As though the earth were crumbling

Though tell of healthy kids

Frustrate my rest thirst soul

Incessant report of others

Unceasing songs of requests

Of sweets and balls and books

Plus cries and tears and hatred

That are better child’s than adult’s

Frustrate my uneasy head

Oh what a trying day!

Of torn blinds and broken stools

Of aching leg and bleeding mouth

The crash I hear next to the cry

Sings the demise of a memento

A golden cup much cherished

At such maddening moments

That joys of birth

The pride of parenthood

Are questioned in a flash

One is tempted to wish

Wish what? … my God !

The number not withstanding

‘Tis same with one or more

Such a tormenting moment

Comes more often than none

It takes Gods own grace

To infuse the rebuking hands

Raised, with fury equipped

With parental love and mercy

That chastise but not maim

NEIGHBOURHOOD

The graveyard silence

Who can imagine it ?

Who has been through it ?

Come tell me if I’m right

It all begins with murmurs

As ghosts begin to gather

For the eight hourly show

In the freezing cold rooms

All heads bowed

Hiding the contoured faces

Only the soundless shuffling

Of heads and pens and lips

Then bells and clanks and rustlings

Familiar cries from screens

The great fall of a pin

From the busy Jack’s table

Such yokes of white collar !

Oh Lord have mercy !

On these whispering souls

Is this a jungle of books

Or a place of work

The place for active minds ?

Different folks, different strokes

Come with me to see

A better place to be

Where iron’s cry abounds

In their various grounds

Where every vender’s voice

Collide in a bedlam

In vendoral mastery

Of the daily bread race

Come with me to see

The accelerated engines

Trailed by accelerated heels

Responding to accelerated voices

All streaks of blue collar!

Irons sharpening irons

Irons bounding woods

Irons searing bones

In the vendible arena

A perfect place to be?

I DO NOT LIKE YOU MUMMY

I do not like you mummy!
When in my innocence
You splashed my face with blood
Ever before babbling
Fed me drunk with Palmwine
Pure wine from your towering palms
Denied the animalistic gene
Of cow and Gate or Lactogene
Sorry, I can not like you.

Wonder not why
I can not like you mummy
You sob each time i cry
Alarmed each moment i ache
My worries do for me
All lousy stamps of softness
Softness unbecoming of men
Please, I can not like you

I do not like you mummy
For your threatnening monopoly
My main blood, salt and water
My first house, my first food
My first teacher and doctor
My first and oldest wife
Omnipresent in my life
Oh no! I can't just like you!

My little cares accept
It's not of stinginess
Nor ignorance of your pricelessness
For you I have no likeness
You gave no such to me
To Caesar, his to give
My love I humbly give
It never was mine
But excess from your mine
Mum, my heart to you i give!

Twin of Olodumare!
The giver of life!
The mould of moods
What else have i to give?
The best alone is worth
Had i the whole wide world
My priceless gold to give
It can't repay your least
See why i can't just like you?

DO GOODERS

The do-gooders are not

Those who sponsor

That names may ring bells

And screens may beam

They are sure not in the picture

The do-gooders are not

The party sprayers

Who open sycophantic mouths with wads

The proverbial ground wetters

They only pay the pipers

The do-gooders are not

Those who sustain one on daily stipends

In the guise of generous trends

Such support, to slavery tends

The prisoners’ food is not for fattening

The do-gooders do not abound

In the crafty recipients

Who in want of another courage to ask

Embrace the circumlocutory task

Of adulation that more may abound

The do-gooders are found

They are the red crosses in between fires

Who against the pleas of love bound

Give of their lives for the victims of trials

Their good is rarely sung

The do-gooders are either

Those who unsolicited helps render

Or those with the widow’s mite to tender

Though they put smiles on faces

They are never thanked in phases

The do-gooders are found

Like the green snake

In the green grass

In their noiseless footprints

Their faceless grants

Deficiency of ulterior motives

The do-gooders are rare.

DEHIN

Dehin o, Dende dehin!

Dehin o Dende, dehin

Tin ba de bode ma mapa falapa

Dehin o Dende, dehin

Tin ba de bode ma mese felese

Dehin o Dende, dehin

A social masquerade I am!

A special without season

Festivity all year round

Insensitive to askance faces

Dehin o Dende, dehin!

The black, white and blonde sponges

Fencing my temple and the eyes

Drawing you like magnet

Are gifts from sleeping souls

Of man pony or fibre

Dehin o Dende, dehin!

The fat around my face

Caused by layers of dust and mascara

Often beclouds my countenance

Till such a paint is caked off

Dehin o Dende dehin!

The aromatic stick that thickens my lips

The bluish blush that pales my face

The bogus tyre rims that burden my ears

The heavy lashes that roost upon my eyelids

I soon must set in sunder

Dehin o, Dende dehin !

These mobile claws of many colours

Agreeably seated on my forks

Have oppressed my nails too long

And shan’t be there much longer

Dehin o, Dende dehin!

Should you ignore the imposing chains

Around my neck, wrist and ankles

Blind not your eyes to my rainbow skin

The self-imposed act of utmost wickedness

I should willingly replay on others

Having inflicted same on self

Dehin o, Dende dehin!

When am done with these ceremonial costumes

That you so much adore

And through with the DE-ODOUR-ANT

On this walking corpse of mine

Twill be clear why I chant

Dehin o, Dende dehin!

* Dehin, in Yoruba language means "Desist" or "Go back" depending on the context.

* Dende is a name given to a male child

Translation of the first stanza:

Desist, Dende Desist

Desist, Dende Desist

When i get to the border

I will give hand to the owner

Desist, Dende Desist

When i get to the border

I will give legs to the owner

Desist, Dende Desist

SOUVENIR

There is a board of clay

That does its record play

With every passage of day

Boards of our lives!

Yellow, Black or White

So much recount our strives

The red lamps on the fore

Of yester tears recur

Or scaring stares of yore

That mouth never can tell

The wrinkled board that covers

May scream of empty coffers

Or plight of dirty labourers

Aside the creaming scrappers

The missing fragments of white boards

Lost in various loose words

Or in several gluttonous munching

The bearer well records

The various drooping heights

Are probably scared of lights

Illuminating their shameful sights

Unfruitful toils and numerous sighs

Bill boards of our lives!

Must you scream so much?

VIRTUOUS WOMAN

Women are sweet

We men are swift

Hardly tamed by one

But what would I do

With a thousand women

If you were not one

Say what would I do

With a harem of beauty

If you were not one

In the co-operation of riches

To pamper me

Lies my unreserved love

What with charming women

If the charm were wanting

When the times are trying

What with a zillion packs of favour

Lavished on me in courtship

If it were not present at home

In the long suffering

The persistent flow of favour

Unfleeting inner beauty

Lies the co-operation of wealth

To pamper me

WHO WILL BE A TEACHER?

If I were a pagan

In search of a slogan

Or better still redemption

I’d choose to be a soldier

Rather than be a teacher

The arduous way to heaven

A teacher’s reward is beyond

A soldier loots the world

And turns not the other cheek

A bonus to the first abused cheek

But a teacher never says stop

A sheep his character model

The arduous way to live

Who has the time to teach?

When hearing is all they do

Understanding they do not

I’ll rather use the sword

To get the pledge from them

The best of ways to lead

A soldier has it all

With little “Don’ts” to watch

A teacher watches it all

With little “Dos” of life

An arduous task of living

A soldier has no rule

Except to save his life

A teacher has no life

Except to live his teachings

An arduous way to teach

I’ll fight to save my life

Not teach to risk the same

I can’t await the Head- Teacher

Whose promise seems too far

You better save yourself

The easiest way to be

To be, to be

The easiest way to be

The rosy way of life

The world has learnt to choose

To choose, to choose

The world has learnt to choose

WHO WILL BE A TEACHER?

How safe are the Mighty ?

How safe are the mighty?

Even the short arm

Of the common can reach them

At the market place

In the kitchen

At the baby’s nappy

In the laundry

At the massive gate

Behind the delicate steering

On the dumb office floor

The ADC post

Think of it brother

How safe are the mighty?

Or shall I say another?

Who are the mighty?

How safe are the mighty

In the hands of the common?

How distanced is their safety?

From the omnipresent hand?

At the mercy of the cook

Whose mistress’ allergy

Forbids her entering kitchens

So with a poisoned cup

The master’s throat can hook

And madam’s laughter curb

In the absence of a taster

How safe? How safe?

In the stainless laundry

The master’s flowing robe is as gentle

As the baby’s nappy

Never resisting, never reporting

So with a lethal substance

The master’s flesh may skin

A little drop on the innocent wear

That is all it takes

How safe? How safe?

At the MASSIVE gate

While master slumbers on

Behind the delicate fanciful steering

As madam snores away

How safe? How safe?

How safe are the mighty?

The office is not a safe place

When the cleaner is aggrieved

Nor is security in Aide

When the mind is corrupt

How safe then are the mighty?

How safe? How safe?

In homeward journey from school

With innocent chattering of children

Unmindful of the driver’s mind

Who may choose to steal

Or the little things to still

Lies the safety of the mighty

But because the common

With their short memory

In the momentary pleasure

Forget their fits of anger

Against the rape of justice

Of the bestial mighty

And the lack, pain and hunger

That feed on their class

Perhaps the awe of their creator

Or of a jobless tomorrow

The scolding faces of wives

The tearful eyes of hungry babes

The uncertain voices of his class

The innocent offspring of the mighty

Have coldly stayed his revengeful fist

What then shall we say?

Because the mighty

Are not so called

And the common

Are not so dubbed

Let the MANY continue to be COMMON

And the FEW continue to be MIGHTY

Until the many discovers

The strength that is in number

THE HEAD OF TAIL

The Head of state

The sense of state

Self-acclaim all knowing

Uneasy part of state

The heady part of state

The focus of state

The end of state

The EYE of state

That fails to see

The light of state

That fails to shine

That head may not be vexed

Except the rotund picture

Of his master’s measure

By the mouth of state

The MOUTH of state

The voice of Ale

And noise that’s stale

Rants while silence is golden

Mums while rapid raps embolden

That head may not be vexed

The long shut mouth

Emitting lethal stench

The EAR of state

The fear of state

Diseased of state

From every junk consume

And every one infect

That head may nod aright

It hears the head aright

But shuns the “BUSY-BODY”

The untiring Grumbletonia

The NOSE of state

The noose of sage

Familiar with stately stench

Abhorrence of RATLY odour

The RATS so neatly soiled

Rebellious Against The State

Inspite of bodily claim

That STARS are not rats

But Savers That Are Rebuffed

Should head be all a-lined

And body be so un-mind

Shall we be right to say

That HEAD is head of TAIL

Or THE END OF STATE