TO BE A VIRGIN

you’ll never be alone
my sister
truth is bitter
like a bead of pearls
wear it round your throat
like chloroquine for fever
swallow it
 
in that case you’ll never be alone
 
during your prime
passion may come
for you to break the pot
when it’s not yet to deflower
the beautiful garden you’ve nurtured
till now
 
do mind your peers
Dinah had no fears
she had to shed tears
 
till when you’ll experience womanhood
let no bee suck your virgin nectar
 
my sister
say a greeting to hospitality
with generosity make a friend
kindness your bounden-duty
 
hopeless Sarah entertained men
angels who gave her hope
…she laughed!
 
you may laugh too
when it seems chastity does not pay
truth stranger than fiction
morality sign of weakness
but remember
if you keep my words
you’ll never be alone

 

WETIN YOU GO DO?

every day living
na palaver
to get cassava
na wahala
with hunger
no shame in gutter

God bless
the aje-butter
i always mutter
as i scavenge the bin
even ordinary water
na serious matter
assaulted by the economic fever
i shiver
down to my liver

no more survival
we’re all singing revival
our saliva
we swallow hard
as we try fight corruption
with half-devotion
egunje dey give us attraction

more than five moons
rusting away at home
becoming an educated fool
no thanks to my ogbanje school
wetin I go do?

i go try my hand
draw a few lines
write a few rhymes
in perspiration
spiced with some inspiration

but you
wetin you go do?

 

WWW.FOOL

welcome to fool’s paradise
where exists no parasite
about a new craze me a neophyte
of this thing called web site
first is me looking for email
that my pal me could exchange mail
to do this me will fail
for my email address reads:
fool@paradise.dontcom
to this no one hooks up
soon this email packs up

ozie says email’s nothing
that i should get something
something live and direct
to hook up with the wild wild world
ozie says web site is something
me then should get a web site
a world wide window for me a neophyte
that goes faster than email and pmail

as me finishes reading ozie’s correspondence
should me say what coincidence
i raise my head in my residence
catch sight a buxom spider spinning her own web of residence
at a conspicuous site in my residence
in my presence
elated my eyes shine bright
and my joy knows no height
i watch this spider with delight
spinning its web to fabricate
a wide web intricate
for me to communicate

this spider me removes from its site
for other sites she could fabricate
and me communicate
at every spun web this spider me will extricate
eureka! me finds a web site to participate
to the wide wild world to communicate
through this web site intricate
me then calls ozie to investigate
my exquisite site

ozie calls me a fool.com
but me likes that name
and names my web site:
www dot fool don’t com

 

ONCE UPON A POET

i am a poet
i am a weaver of words
by inspiration
i make concoction of common words
in the cauldron of thin-layered head
by perspiration
i roast raw ruminations into cerebral
edibles
i am a poet
i am a weaver of words
in stitches i sow garments
of poems hung in the open
for your amusement and enlightenment
but i am poor
why not stop by and pick a book?

 

FROM HIROSHIMA WITH LOVE

love hurts like missile against your chest
it burns like a house frying in inferno
love thrills like a collection of cocktails
creating in the heart and mind
a fusion of illusion and devotion

love excites like an engrossing preoccupation
it incites like a powerfully worded sermon
love is atomic

it blows the heart into smithereens scattered
all over Hiroshima

shattering your life in the heat of its force

we arrived from Hiroshima with deep hole in our hearts

wondering how you still love us

you’ve built love on our foundation of  careless hate

we’re amazed as you nurture it in fragility

can a word of regret clear the eternal debris

can we atone for the hate of our past

will this love resurrect the dead and bury our living hate?

 

SEASONS JUST PASS

seasons just pass
without reasons
like a babe i still muse
over treason
defying prisons

momma was pledged
better life for rural women
she was ruled out
even without reason
wasn’t that treason?

poppa promised
poverty eradication program
but was programmed
yes for retrenchment
wasn’t that poverty commencement program
that doesn’t make life easy?

seasons just pass
without reason
better life turns bend-down life
poverty eradication program
now penury elongation pogrom

starting a new season
everyone’s shivering
cost of living increasing
many still craving
thieves thieving
labourers laboriously labouring
terrorists terrorizing
traders tremulously trading

seasons just pass
without reasons
nothing good seems pleasing.

 

 

CHASING A DREAM

It was midnight. He did not know how he got to find himself where he was right now. All alone on the long, dusty, windy road that led to his parents’ house. He sauntered down the road, shaking his head left and right as if in some rapture. It is either he was oblivious of the darkness or he was not scared by it. He apparently was enjoying the eternal silence and privacy the impenetrable night offered.

He began whistling pleasurably as he walked on the silent shadowy street. Suddenly, something took shape behind him. He felt he was no longer alone. Someone else? Something else? Who – what- could that be? Angels watching over me? Or, the mighty mai-guard trailing my steps? Or…his endless thoughts trailed off as he kept on pondering in his mind. Yes, he knew he was no longer alone on that lonely road.

A figure surfaced behind him. In sharp reflex, he ducked as the figure stretched out his hand toward his shoulder. Instinctively, he took to his heels. The figure pursued – doubling his pace; drawing closer. He tripled his pace leaving stretch gap for the figure to cover. He took a quick glance backward to figure out what or who was chasing him. Could it be my shadow after all? Who or what is trailing me? O God uncover this gloom! His heart raced with thoughts. He was scared stiff. Gripped by fear he decided to scream for help…mouth agape, no sound came forth from his mouth. He had only exhaled.

Have I become so fear-stricken and exhausted to yell? Or, was my tongue missing in my mouth? Perhaps, my tongue was too twisted to utter any intelligible audible, sound…he thought as he ran for dear life. Overtaken by a great measure of fear mixed with curiosity he glanced back again. And there was the figure! Just a breath away from him. He accelerated pace. The figure did no less. On and on he kept running, as the figure pursued him fiercely. And the figure was closing in on him. As he ran the road appeared to stretch even farther. 

Every step he took, he took it in pains. He had been running bare-footed. His almost naked body had been severely whipped by the harmattan wind. O help me God! He cried without tears. The dust was gathering in thick dark clusters high and above his head. The harmattan dust seemed to be suffocating him as he coughed with all his nerves. The figure kept drawing closer and closer. If only I had the light-speed legs…if only I could fly. So he wished.

He needed help – urgently too. People in the neighbourhood were dead asleep at this hour. What about angels? He asked in his mind. The cherubs? The seraphs? Could they be sleeping? Riotous queries riddled his fragile brain as his naked body seemed to disintegrate in the heat of the fiery chase. It was race for life between the chased and the chaser.

For ever the chase seemed. Farther onward the road stretched. The figure, soaked in sweat, was catching up on his prey. The figure could hear the prey’s heart-beat throbbing. He was getting him…but there was a corner. He swerved. Before he could negotiate the bend the figure dived after him.

 They both crashed in the dust. Some time elapsed. They both passed out. There was darkness.

 And there was light. He was stunned by what he saw after he came to. He was turbaned with a wrap of bandage on his head; his left hand bulging with plaster of Paris. Beside him was someone he recognized as his mother. Opposite his bed was a figure groaning and murmuring. The figure was wrapped from head to toe in bandage like an Egyptian mummy. Who is that? He thought.

 “That is your father!” her mother said with anger rising in her voice.

“See, after you leave here,” she said sternly. “We will be chaining you to your bed when you sleep!”

 “Do you want to kill my husband for me?” his mother asked. “Or, you want me to lose you, my son?”

 

 

JOHNNY JUST COME

He looked at his wristwatch and shook his head like someone not satisfied by what he saw. He gave it a second look. The expression on his face was that of an alarm. He took another look: this time checking the watch against the ancient city-clock of monumental proportion. He smiled approvingly at his time-worn watch. “Tempus fugit!” he gasped. He quickened his pace toward the motor park…

“Ketu, Ojota, Mile-12! Ketu, Ojota, Mile-12!” the conductor announced into the empty air of the fledgling dawn. He thrust his filthy fingers into his customized pocket where he usually lodges fares collected; and brought out a sturdy stick. No sooner had he put the stick in his mouth than he began spreading spittle everywhere into the air. And his coarse voice (no thanks to paraga and ganja) rang again: “Ketu, Ojota, Mile-12!” By now he knew where he was. Lagos. Eko for show. Akeju tried to walk briskly as others were doing. The first step he took in that attempt landed him on the ground. He had just stepped on nylon of “pure water”. He cursed and cursed. People tried to raise him up but he refused. He requested for sacrifice to be made before he could get up. Those trying to help him get up burst into a lava of laughter and simply went away to mind their business.

Bracing up from his downfall and its consequent embarrassment Akeju got up. He tried to pick his bag that fell off his arm; the bag was no more on the ground. First, his mien was that of misfortune. It changed to bewilderment. And by the time he was on his feet there was fury foaming all over his body. His angry eyes caught sight of a man busy scrambling for passengers in the Onitsha-Owerri-Aba motor park. He seemed to recognize the man. He hurried into the nearby park and grabbed the man by the arm.

“Where’s my bag?” Akeju demanded. His hand now trembling as he feebly held on to the man’s muscular hand. The man took a scornful glance at him. “Yes. It’s you am talking to. I said where’s my bag,” Akeju said impatiently.

“Abi you dey craze?” the man fumed.

“You be thief. And na you dey mad,” said Akeju, tightening his grip now on the man’s shirt. This seemed to be another morning-show in Lagos. Crowd was forming like a thick mass of cumulus. Lagosians are reputed onlookers in this kind of situation. Even the police have a penchant for looking on when a scenario like this happens. A showdown was brewing. Could Akeju handle this man? Or would the man look at Akeju as a ranting ant? Before you could say “what happened?” the man thrust his clenched fist into Akeju’s midriff…a blow that left Akeju suspended in the air for several seconds. And, thud! He came down to earth. Again, the Lagos crowd had time for amusement even during a rush-hour. They laughed mockingly at Akeju and some said, “yeye-man. Abi im no know im size.”

This time around no one was willing to give Akeju a helping hand. He was stuck to the ground writhing in pain. He had never before been humiliated like this. He tried to stand up; he staggered, stumbled and was back on the ground again. Then something jolted him up. He heard a tingling sound coming from his pocket. O his cell phone, he reached for it. Before he could say “hello!” he felt a dulling sensation on his face as a hand from nowhere slammed on his bony cheek. He let go of the phone. His eyes shutting up as he went sprawling on the ground. The impact of the hard-hitting hand on his face was grueling. For Akeju there was no helper; there was no sympathizer. This is Lagos…Eko for show!

By the time he came to it was already afternoon. He looked like one dented by a bike. He murmured to himself, “What has happened? Where’s my bag, my phone?” he dipped his shaking hand into his pocket and reached for his diary. He staggered to a nearby call centre. Exhausted and disheveled, with his knees knocking each other he begged for a seat. He called out some numbers for the operator to dial for him. While waiting for the call, he requested for a bottle of Coke to cool off.

“It’s ringing,” the operator announced. Akeju held the phone against his face and for the first time felt an excruciating pain on cheek. It was quite difficult for him speak audibly enough.

“Kay it’s me. Am now in Lagos. Where are you? Could you come and pick me up at the park? I’ll be waiting….”

He downed his bottle of Coke. He heaved a heavy sigh. He stood up. He sat down again. As if recovering from a temporary amnesia all that had happened to him earlier in the morning came flooding through his head. He shook his head wearily. He still could not figure out why he was looking so spent and haggard. He had yet not thought of his bag and cell phone. He made to leave the call centre and a voice halted him: “Oga, you never pay o!”

“O am so so sorry,” he apologized as he reached for his wallet at the back-pocket of his trousers. The wallet was not there. He shook his head in disbelief. He searched the other pockets. The wallet had been stolen. This made his chest ache with anguish. He shook his head again and slumped into the chair he was sitting on before. The creaking, rickety chair gave way…. Akeju trying to hold on to mid-air crashed to the ground. He passed out. Everyone around took to his heels. The shop-owner was confused. She stood over Akeju for several seconds calling, “Mr. Man. Mr. Man. Oga, get up now!”

“Wetin come be all this?” she queried.

She looked around. She gently locked up her shop and took to her heels. Akeju was still lying death-like on the floor.

 

2015

staring but not seeing

are there clairvoyant eyes

peeking into Nostradamus’ cauldron

of concocted tomorrows

i behold twenty colours of confusion

and fifteen of convolution

pessimistic!

isn’t 2015 a magical era

fireworks, tongues of fire heralding it

billions keeping vigil just for a sight

while eternity passes us by

2015

at twenty why are we still acting like blasphemous teens?

 

2014

in the passion of my impatience
i am conjuring your future presence
unfold the depth of your essence
do abide by my insistence
as i behold your fences
in the faraway borders of limitlessness
enshroud in sworn silence

grant me the licence
come to me in your silence

 

2014
am i pointless?
am i hopeless
in your future absence?
i grope for your past tense