The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Osundare

  • SNAPSONG

    Early morning

    The sun is very young

    Shadows fall like long shawls

    Over the shoulders of the road

     

     

    A truthful enemy

    Is far better than a phony friend

    Face me without a mask

    That I may see your words

     

     

    Of sinful Saints

    And saintly Sinners

    Life’s inseparable twins

    Its undecipherable code

     

     

    If you turn the world

    Into a bowl of poison

    You will not go without

    Drinking a sizeable cup

     

     

    The powerful live

    Above the Law

    The powerless lurk

    Below its wings

     

     

    Walk steady, friend

    Walk easy

    Don’t ever let your feet

    Quarrel with the road

  • SNAPSONGS

    Again, here cometh The Grand Imperial Braggart

    “I don’t have a racist bone

    In my body”, proclaimed

    The Braggart Emperor. His lie

    Sent the wind into a sickening spell

     

    Not a single racist bone,

    He screamed again

    The wondering world heard

    And broke into tearful laughter

     

    Yes, no racist bone

    The pious proclamation thundered

    Through steamy detention centers

    Swarming with dire, degraded migrants

     

    “Shithole countries”

    “Rapist, crime-infested” migrants

    “Good-people” Nazis

    Nasty “Jihad Squad”

     

    Hear these praise-names

    And exalt the Emperor

    Incomparable Statesman

    Utterly allergic to truth and love

     

    “No racist bone”

    In my body

    Hence my one obsessive dream:

    MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN (MAWA)

  • SOMETIMES

    Sometimes fingers do

    not know their kin-

    ship with the hand

     

    Nor do eyes remember

    the faces that house their sockets

     

    Sometimes fruits forget

    the names of the trees

    whose sap sustains their being

     

    It s a long, long journey from

    stem-centre to the branch’s edge

     

    Sometimes palm-oil cannot re-

    call the travails of the bunch

    whose wild thorns secured its glow

     

    The offspring of beauty may

    drown out its dark, ungainly parent

     

    Sometimes the ocean overlooks

    the character of the clouds

    which mother the rains

     

    The multitude of water is so large

    we forget the power of individual drops

     

    Sometimes some bullets tear

    through the streets we wonder

    what fingers command their carnage

     

    The temperament of the trigger is so snappy

    it never sees the blood at the season’s end

  • HARMLESS

    You may sing your song

    In whatever tune you choose

    But do not touch us

    Where our boil is hard

     

    Sing about the star

    Sing about the moon

    Sing about the sky’s hollow whisper

    Through the gossip of the night

    But do not touch us

    Where our boil is hard

     

    Sing about horses with liquid legs

    Sing about grasses which grow in the sky

    Sing about dead gallops, discounted canters

    But do not touch us

    Where our boil is hard

     

    Dredge up the tales of long-gone years

    When Kings were kind and Queens were caring/courteous

    When the world bowed in awe of the royal awe

    But do not touch us

    Where our boil is hard

     

    Go measure the city’s tallest tower

    Count the drops in its longest river

    Splurge on the noise of its marketplace

    But do not touch us

    Where our boil is hard

     

    Sing about onion fumes

    Sing about the tomato’s red riot

    Sing about abstract feasts for absent guests

    But do not touch us

    Where our boil is hard

     

    Sing about the spider’s seventh leg

    Sing about the crab’s small eye

    Sing about the divinity of the donkey

    But do not touch us

    Where our boil is hard

     

    Count the wrinkles on the face of the rock

    Read the graffiti on the walls of absent cities

    Study the tattoos on the biceps of the wind

    But do not touch us

    Where our boil is hard

     

    Close your eyes to the falling of the bomb

    Block your ears to the groans of the ghetto

    Pen a paean for the Thief-of-State

    Just don’t touch us

    Where our boil is hard.

  • THE STORY OF EARTH AND SKY (4)

    Earth looked at Sky

    Sky responded with a potent gaze

    Neither knew what to say about the wasteful rift

    No recriminations came near the new accord

    Too late now for the couple to re-unite

    Under their former roof

    They decided to teach the world

    How to love across the distance

     

    So, next time you see Earth and Sky

    Holding hands in a blue horizon

    Remember this story

    And sip the honey of my words.

     

    Ko ko ko kowewe koweeee****

    My story has legs

    But it will never run away

    Follow me now

    To my house of many songs.

     

    In the beginning

    Earth and Sky were wife and husband.

     

    * Yoruba god of the crossroads, of fate and circumstance

    ** Trouble, turmoil

    *** Quarrel time, a simple song sounds lie a proverb

    Matters are out of agreement

    Oh my people, let him wash his mouth on me

    **** Used for its musical, performative effect; some form of scatting

    • (Concluded)

     

    THE TONGUE

     

    Hail the tongue

     

    Pink fire

    Rainbow rhymer

     

    Good servant

    Bad master

     

    Chief Priest

    In the temple of the mouth

  • THE STORY OF EARTH AND SKY (3)

    Months rolled over months

    Years disappeared into years

    Earth’s journey became a lone walk

    From one land’s end to another

    Sky pranced like a sole stallion

    Above the endless clouds.

    A pestilential drought compounded the rift

    Drying rivers wailed in their beds

    Leaves bemoaned their plight on famished trees

    Grey strands erupted on Earth’s magnificent mane

    Sky sulked and sighed, sighed and sulked

    His heart bursting with unshared intimations

    A savage longing afflicted his loins

     

    In the beginning

    Earth and Sky were husband and wife

     

    And so

    Earth pined, Sky moaned

    Sky hissed in thunder and lightning

    Earth belched in volcanoes and tremors

    The universe shook like a demon in chains

     

    Then. . . .

    The Birds of the Air

    Sent Eagle on a peace mission

    Eagle flew and flew and flew

    Eagle flew till its wings were weary

    From the winds and seared by the sun

    Eagle flew and flew and flew

    Eagle cut through the clouds,

    Bringing Earth’s ear close to Sky’s mouth

    Dialogue gave birth to Memory

    Memory to Remembrance

    Remembrance to yearning

    Yearning to a long-expected softening. . . .

     

    And Sky’s answer came in grunts and seminal showers

    Earth’s was ecstasy and luscious greening

    Rivers sang again and romped between the hills

    The air regained its cool composure

    A peace ensued that the land had never known

     

    • (Continued next week)

  • THE STORY OF EARTH AND SKY (1)

    My story has legs

    But it will never run away. . ..

     In the beginning before the beginning

    Earth and Sky were wife and husband

    They lived in the same house

    Ate from the same dish

    Laughed the same laughter

    And slept each night

    Locked in cosmic embrace

    From their union sprang

    The mountain and the river

    And the river was woman

    And the mountain was man

    The river raised a song

    The mountain spread its echoes

    Among the Seven Winds

    In the beginning

    Earth and Sky were wife and husband

    Then, one night,

    When the cloud was bold and the moon was shy

    Esu* tiptoed through the silence

    And poisoned the joyous laughter

    Of a perfect union. . . . .

    A strange hush fell across the universe

    Trailed by a wild and eerie outburst

    Sky’s face furrowed into a frown

    For Earth all song became a sigh

    In the beginning

    Earth and Sky were husband and wife

    (Continued next week)

  • SNAPSONG 71

    Said a man proud and triumphantly unwise

    “Because I do not see it,

    It does not exist

         Seeing is my supremest belief”

     

    If you think I’m wrong

    Provide your proof

    Show me the shape of an absent thought

    Or the lineaments of a latent imagination

     

    Touch is my teacher

    Appearance my priest

    Whatever is not

    Can never be

     

    The fate of the flower

    Is its peculiar colour

    What is the ocean

    Without its waves

     

    Show it to me

    And I will tell what it is

    I can never think of the rain

    If I do not see the clouds

     

    We eat what we see

    Confirms the Village Sage

    It is things never seen

    That continue to eat us

  • SNAPSONG 70

    I have a stubborn faith

    In the possibility of goodness

    Flowers which outlast the thorn

    On branches bent, but never broken

     

    I squat on the trembling

    Lips of the desert dweller

    Who has a causeless fear behind his shadow

    Waiting, waiting for the rain

     

    The oasis is a debt

    Which the desert owes the rain

    That green pause in the sandy

    Discourse between the dunes

     

    And the clouds

    Which fore-went the rains

    In the torrid imagination

    Of seasons too many for the numbering moon

     

    A pagan obduracy over-

    Rides the feeble theology

    Of arrogant myths parading

    The world like the sole, invariant truth

     

    Hurray to those tireless spirits

    Who see the sky beyond the clouds

    The well of goodness

    Never runs completely dry

  • SNAPSONG 69

    JUNE (2)

    Green  things

    Green thoughts

    Green flames

    Of the first fires

     

     

    Green imagination of the rain

    Which wrote the book of the river

    With its liquid lines and cursive phrases

                And the moss-maned mountains whose lofty eyes

     

    Perused the pages just as joyously literate

    As its school of enthusiastic shoals

    From the turbulent capers in the nascent heights

    To the twilight slide into the waiting sea

     

     

    All so green in June’s jolly jazz

    The friendly fire of the flame tree whose

    Wick-long charm enthralls the sun before their quiet draft

    Into the red army beneath the boughs

     

    Green sweat

    In the moonless sky of the farmer’s night

    The leafy canopy over heaps of rising tubers

    The leguminous lingerie of weeded furrows

     

     

    Green intimations, all so green

    Behold your month, oh Offspring of the Rain

    Count its days, divine its deeds

    Share their blessings with our universe of being