A Pensive Song (For Juwon)

Where is the boy that shook hands with me
Two full moons ago;
My adopted brother whose blood
Spiritual courses my veins?
Where is the boy that shook hands with me
That flashed a smile;
So full of warmth,  it drove me insane?

Stop.

Mama Dele told me that Tunde told her
That Funsho told him that Lade told him
That the boy is dead.

Yepa! Iro ni!
Get thee behind me Satan!
Juwon shall not die but live!
No weapon fashioned...
No wea...

Mama Dele told me that Tunde told her
That Funsho told him that Lade told him
That the boy is dead;

Could this be true?
Could it?

**********************************

The campfire burns                brightly
And we,  jocund like children who have found
Chocolate island dance round the flames,
Deaf to the muffled wails of the firewood;
The charring, the charring
Then the ash.
The ash,  the ash
Then the Darkness
Then our feet having lost navigation,
Atrophied by fear of the Dark
Both remember;
        There was a flame,
        And ends, thus, our senseless sway.

Death, O Death!
You have plucked an unripe fruit
And I hope it burns your tongue
Corrodes your lungs, chars your thumb:

DEATH, I WISH THAT YOU WOULD DIE!
DEATH, I WISH THAT YOU WOULD DIE!
DEATH, I WISH THAT

                                      YOU WOULD DIE!

Consoled I am,
                   by only one thought
That our Juwon is heaven-bound.

Mosquito Net

Too often attacked we have been
By anopheles abominations
That roam black earth;
To suck, to suck and to destroy.
Born apyretic were we, until
we passed beside still waters-
Beside disease-giving
Vampire-toothed miniature hell hounds
Who sang merry songs in our ears
As we slept
And a straw put they
In our veins
To suck, to suck and to destroy.
We burnt incense in their honour
Thinking they were spirits
Of our ancestors who felt threatened
By Yahweh's Son and his doctrines.
We were wrong. Terribly wrong.
They only wanted blood. Nothing more.

So we gave them
What they wanted
Gave them one of their own-
We squashed him, and
His blood we gave them to drink.
Petty bastards!
They drank it all...
And still came after our sons.

So we gave them
What they wanted
Gave them one of our own-
We squashed him, and
His blood we gave them to drink.
Petty bastards!
They drank it not...
They accepted not our sacrifice-

The fool in a hurry
Drinks tea with a fork,
We should have bought
A moquito net.

Domestic Violence

Mother is limping; a guerdon
Of her encounter with Bash Ali,
Our father; the embattled one.
All lizards lie on their stomachs;
We don't know which one
Has stomachache.

We are men, we are strong
Let us beat our wives to prove it!
Mon amour, my heartbeat
How dare you talk to me that way?
We are men, we are strong
And we will beat our wives to prove it!
I am the head of the house,
Jesus has given me authority
Over my house.
Wife, you must obey my every word,
Wife, you must satisfy my every want.
We are men, we are strong
And we will beat our wives to prove it!
My fingers itch, I
Will scratch it with the bone of my bone.
I am hungry, I
Will eat the flesh of my flesh.

The lie aeonian:
"...And so they lived happily ever after"

Epilouge it is:
Cinderella,
your eyes are swollen
What happened after honeymoon?
Has the monster been awoken
The one who guised himself a prince?

Beauty has kissed the Beast
Again, but turn he will not 'nto
A prince:
He will turn into The Hulk
And pummel his wife to death.

Tic-tac-toe

We used to draw lines upon lines
Upon lines and fill them lines
with x's and o's
X's and O's that stood for the past;
The esexs and hoes that
Troubled our past.
We scribbled sweet words
At the ends of the paper:
"I love you", "I love you",
"You love me, don't you?"

Euphoric I felt, this love
Is sealed, this love is real
'Tis love I feel.

But one morning dreary
I awoke alone
In the ashes of passion
I awoke alone.

"I love you", "I love you",
"You love me, don't you?"
Tic-tac-toe; my lover is gone.

Catarrh

My nose wet bleeds mucus
Lemon-coloured sweetness;
A toddler's snack in times of hunger.
Nature's ice-cream flows unhindered;
God, He sneezed into my nostrils
Men, they think I caught a cold.
Nature's ice-cream hated by all-
Combated, reviled,
Declared wanted
By WHO.
Scientists working tirelessly
Mixing forming witching
brewing solutions
to staunch "my cold"-

But never have they ever paused to ask,
"Wale enjoy do you your snack?"

Biafra (The Flashback)

I remember back then when
The sun used to rise
In the East, when our Enugu
Was a model of Solomon's temple.
Oduduwa, your children have connived
With the Hausas to excide us
From the land of the living.
The waters have turned to blood,
The fishes have begun to grow legs
The Nigerian Gowon has sterilised
Our stomachs;
                         what is food to a
Prayer warrior?
Karma sleeps when the Igbos
Are in captivity,
In their own land!
Parcels of bombs are delivered
In the markets-
Buffet for the vultures.

Refugee camps are where
We go to die 'cause typhiod
Awaits with open arms.

There is a story of how
The Earth and the Moon
Struggled for ownership of the Sea-

Their tidal clashes crushing
And crushing
Fragile pisces of the Sea-

We will blame the Earth
And the Moon

For the redness of the sea.

We will blame the West
And the North

For the redness of our streams.

Nigeria, we surrender
You have won
Can you hear our children's screams?

Mother Hen

Every month my wife
Lays eggs
But breaks them by sitting
For too long-

My wife is a Mother hen
Without chicks
Because the yolk's
Within my loins.

Holy Water

Angels are urinating
In the River Niger-
They have been drinking
(too much)"Holy Water"

I drank it once too-
"Holy Water"-
I woke up in the gutter.