Words

Words like field of mines
Explode in several bits on fertile minds
Leaving the heart foggy,


…Rippling thoughts,

Quaking convictions,

Questioning conventions,

Finding answers…


The haze is cleared!
And what stares our face?
A world of meaning created by words!

In The Shower...

Behind closed doors,
away from filial filtrations
buried betwixt that maternal bossom
of this old-faithful shower
amidst its resonating lullaby,
my lonely heart finds expression.

Naked, my once veiled thoughts roams unrestrictedly
unearthing a maze of memories, time has failed to heal.
Distraught, my emotions climaxed into thick dark clouds
whose weight plummeted under my frail frame
until my cloudy eyes, releases its pains as rain!

I let the tears flow unabated,
cascading down the steepy slopes of my gloomy face,
interrupted on its lonely path,
by the rhythmic eruption of my breath
and a heart simmering with pains!

Then came the cold shower,
halting my stream of consciousness
showering kisses on my naked body.
I watched in awe, as my saline pains
are washed down the drain!

For in the shower,
our watery pains are drained
in the ever flowing currents of life.
And on its tide, rides life greatest lesson;
...Let go and move on!

The Signs

We saw the signs!

You painted the sky dark
And made the heavens shed its stars

You set the wind in motion
And it ferried our hopes on its wings

We brought our vessels out to be filled
As the heavens rumbled your coming

You halt life’s cycle,
And cease mother’s blood-spattered pains!

And when our hopes has learnt to soar,
Feathered by your plausible strokes,
We woke up one morning to find you gone!

A bolt of cramp announced your departure
As you left us with a bleeding heart!


*This is dedicated to all those who have had miscarriages in the past or has lost a child.

Aflamed

My world, like in Genesis, so dark
devoid of form and void.
Home to many a painful memory
and dreams yet unborn, lurks in the shadow

Your heart, the long sought match-stick
stricken against my lone match-box heart,
a little spark, then a tiny tinge
and a glow so tender is born!

Your tender glow, my gloomy heart ignites
revealing Eden's treasure, long lost
for once again, I became your guiltless Adam
and you, my innocent Eve!

For let me be the candle wax
upon whom your passionate flame burns
loosed in your warm innocence
two hearts, melting into one

Yet we are all equal

Born to contend with giants
Whose emergence, nature has warmly favoured
A wooden spoon would have made the difference
But with naught, I dine on life’s biased platter

Yet, all men are equal

Like David I gunned for the throne
For books have thought me to aspire
But the favoured have eaten up the meat
And the crumbs they left for me on life’s biased platter

Yet, we are all brothers!

Are we equal that sleep in comfort,
And leave us to watch the night with disturbed thoughts?
Are we brothers that sit in luxury,
And watch as we waste in penury?

Yet, we are all equal!

We are all equal,
That clad our feet with chains of slavery
And yank ancestral bonds apart!
Because we are black.

Yet, we are all brothers!

Preach these sermons over again
Maybe their clogged ears may so hear
The wails of children in distant towns
Whose soul has been severely torn!

For we are all equal!


We are all equal!
We are all brothers!
But why should some mortals blight our creeping light?
And tense up our plight?
Even when fate has made us right?

African Child

Pains......sharp!
searing through my heart

Belly......flat!
rumbling in voiceless protest

And I......battered!
hopelessly longing, for a ray of light

knowing not,
from whence dinner comes!

A Dirge for Bola Akinwumni

Bola Akinwunmi is my University classmate. She died on the 26th of December, 2007.


yesterday...,
you spoke of today
like every other day
life brings across your path.
You call the days by their names
and the weeks, and months,
you have made your friends.
You halt yesterday's dream saying,
"today, I will and shall'
But...,
today is here and you are gone!
We call your name on earth,
but silence echoes our wails,
In the earth where you lay still!

...........................................

But why do you feed mortals
with fruits grown with blood
and when they are ripe,
you pluck them away from life's stem
to feed some parched earth?

Why should mortals be served as meat
on earth's table for farmished worms to feast?

If Only...

If only the moon, the day to rule
And the sun rules the night
Then mortals can labour at moonlight dawn
And recline when the sun burns

If only the masses could rule
And not One ruling Many
For what reason lies in such reality
That One should control the majority?

If only books could write Men
And not Men writing books
For man will distort life’s story
But nature preserves history

If only the man could make his world
And not the world making the man
For the world sets the race
But every man to dictate his pace