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 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
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
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!
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?
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
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
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 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
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.
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”
I must yet drink
From the abundance
Of your brewery
Only now with caution
That I be not drunk
Filled but not intoxicated
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
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
I know is morn in
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
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.
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?
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
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
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
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!
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.
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
But I knew in half
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
