Category: Niyi Osundare

We shall dance tonight

When the mid-term moon covets our shadows

And our parallel lines

Meet in wondrous places

 

We shall dance tonight

When the stars wink like polka dots

On the garment of a sky

So far from its seamless wardrobe

 

We shall dance tonight

When night birds spring into song

Behind the walls and houses

Wear their eaves like fervent ears

 

We shall dance tonight

When the universe throbs

With our memory’s membrane

And little notes cling to the feather of the wind

 

Nimble feet, supple shoulders

Joyous hips so literate

In the rhythm of the roar

Tangled tales, oblivious sighs

 

We shall dance tonight

When the sky spreads out

Like a tempting mat before

Dawn’s wet warrant unsettles the grass

Wonderland, Wonderland

Akeem Akewi, are you listening?

A hundred million naira vanished from government                              coffers

They say a snake swallowed it as its evening meal

 

Aramonda, a o ri ri*

The Governor wailed, his hands in the air

“My Security Vote was stolen

By bandits with unknown design”

 

The Senator, Eminently Distinguished,

And Rightly Honorable,

Lost his Constituency Allowance

Between Abuja and his penury-ravished

constituency

 

The Senate King, his crown askew,

Sent the hallowed House on compulsory holiday

He locked up the country’s Red Chamber

And threw the key into his ocean of infamy

 

In this land of miracles

Our cars are fueled by gallons of prayers

Our Pastor’s car once drove a hundred miles

On an empty but faith-ful tank

 

The moon dropped from the sky

Sauntered silently through

The broken stares of the stars

While the sky moaned like a stricken owl

 

*Wonder, the type never seen before

(Modaru Madrigal 2)

Midas touch on grave reverse:

Whatever he touches turns into toxic dust

Hurricane with an evil eye

He swings round the globe like a wrecking ball

 

Where once Peace prevailed

He opted for war

In place of Light

He fomented the densest Darkness

 

Contemptuous of Honour

Indifferent to Shame

Dignity knows not his home address

And Grace never seeks his foul alliance

 

Cruelty trumps Compassion:

Yank wailing mothers from their suckling babies

Put medical care beyond the helplessly sick

Provoke the land to a Battle between the Tribes

 

Some call him Mobmaster

With a cold corrosive heart

Some swear he is a plague

A boastful sore, a pestilential scourge

 

But his cheering Tribe

Shout his praise, their rampaging Warrior

“Utterly foul, we know he is,

But a faithful executor of our Party program”

(This short note to the Queen of Soul)

Her Voice was her refuge

Her unfailing thunder

In a world suborned by silence

 

There was melody

In that Voice

And memory in its method

 

Tinged, so indelibly, with pain and promise,

That Voice taught a reluctant world

The true spelling of

 

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

 

And the delicate sweetness

Which sometimes springs

From the abyss of adversity

 

But now, alas,

The Songbird is gone

Long live the songs

 

Yeah, Sista,

Tell Paul* Ol’ Man River is still rollin’ along

Tell Otis** We [still] got dreams to remember

 

(Pause)

 

Yeah…..

 

* Paul Robeson: legendary African American lawyer, star athlete, actor, singer, and civil rights activist. Ol’ Man River is one of his most remembered songs.

** Otis Redding: African American singer with a magnificently melodious voice; often called The King of Soul.

Delinquent Defectors  (Part 1)

Here, once again,

Our Prostitutes in Power (PIP)

The shameless dogs have scuttled

Back to their vomit

Our Very Right Honorables are back

In the folds of those they once betrayed

 

Just last season

They broke bond and boundary

Swore new oaths, pledged their fickle faiths

Before a new Headman and his new cohorts

 

Intoxicated by new schemings

Fired up by insatiable appetites:

The nation, to them, was a fallen elephant

And they came with an arsenal of knives

 

At the head of this pack was a ruthless rogue

Who once stole the Senate crown in the dead of night

He found useful Vice in a serial Second Fiddler –

The Prince and his Puppet, both perpetually perverse

 

But the union went sour, the scheme awry

Their share of the flesh disappointed their knives

They fumed, they fretted; then, their tails between their legs,

They scuttled back to their erstwhile cohorts

 

Mindless, rapacious, incurably self-absorbed:

Unfortunate the land ruled by this band of rogues

But unhappier the people so silently

Sentenced to crumbs at their degenerate tables

The year’s first rain is falling

The pawpaw tree behind my house

Is wet with joy. Its trumpet leaves

Are rocking to the whisper of the wind

 

A thousand poring fingers

On my fragile roof

Liquid invaders on the prowl

Through the most invisible leaks

 

The sturdiest walls are scared

The windows are squinting their eyes

The doors stand surprised

At the fury of ravaging water

 

There is a flood down the valley

Where famished flowers endure a watery

Excess. A cow tumbles into the fray

Far, too far from the herdsman’s command

 

The sun, way up behind the clouds,

Is smiling like an old, retiring sage

Who will be summoned back to full duty tomorrow

When these showers have ended their brief campaign?

 

Fall down, fall free

Oh long-expected rain

Kicking tubers in earth’s capacious belly

Omo bokua-bokua ni’ha agbado*

 

*Big, big ears in the cradle of the cornstalk