Category: Niyi Osundare

In the riddle called Life
What is left unsaid is often
Louder than what is said
The sky is nothing if not an open secret

Which God
Is the target of your prayers
Is he one with a year-long beard
Or clean-shaven like a millennial monk?

Which side of the sky
Do you face when you pray
Can you see it through your window
Or do you have a compass in your sacred purse?

What time of day
Is God in his favourite mood:
When the dew lays divine on the grass
Or the flower bows in prayer to the homing sun?

Sabuke says his God is White
Jelila says her own is Black
When shall we turn our eyes
To the God of the Middle Ground?

They say theirs is
No God of Little Things
They lie BIG, they steal BIG
They erect massive altars in Mammon’s Temple

Humanity has not changed much

Since the Dinosaur’s era

The leopard may live a thousand years

But his spots never vary with passing seasons

 

Of all mercenaries I have ever met

He is, no doubt, the most uncouth

His conscience is for ever on sale

To the highest or lowest bidder

 

When he talks

His tongue quarrels with his teeth

His mere silence provokes

Thunder to a most intemperate retort

 

The elephant of his greed

Has uprooted our sacred tree

His pestilential fart

Invades the village nose

 

Between the well clothed beast

And the bare-bottomed baboon

The town is still wondering

Whose head is fitter for the crown

 

Human civilization

Is a fragile thing

The demon in Democracy

Is just a fickle gunshot away

 

Raindrops on banana leaves

The skies are weeping tonight

Say, raindrops on banana leaves

The skies are weeping tonight

Thunder’s laughter unwinds the sky

Our sleep will come, smooth and tight

 

Don’t let shifting winds

Dump you in the valley

Say, don’t let shifting winds

Forget you in the valley

Let towering mountains

Rouse the ferns to a waving rally

 

Rock with the river

And dance with the wind

Yes, rock with the river

And dance with the wind

Leave songprints in the falling rain

Probe the leaves for tunes that bind

 

Let the mouth befriend the ear

Slay that silence in the dreary void

Say, let the mouth befriend the ear

Slay that silence in the dreary void

The season’s drum compels regard

Heed its summons with nary fear

 

Rain raindrops on banana leaves

A sweet wet wonder enthralls the world

Say, rain, raindrops on banana leaves

A sweet wet wonder enthralls the world

From the shy green clump behind my house

To the liquid whisper of the lowering eaves

 

Between the truthful lie

And the lieful truth

There is a forest of factual fancies

Things are never what they seem

 

There is so much smoke here

There must be fire somewhere

The shadow is hardly too far

From the vicinity of its substance

 

The stories they tell

Are unworthy of belief

When a politician throws open his mouth

Watch out for a flood of masticated truths

 

The harder we work

The poorer we are made to be

The labourer roasts in the midday sun

The manager swings in a shaded hammock

 

Homeless in Babylon

The sky is the only roof above our heads

The Vagrancy Law was rolled into being

To sweep us into the garbage bin

 

Between street and prison

A perilously short distance

The new plantation in the Land of the Free

Is decorated with razor fence and armoured guards

(A little Song from the Book of Sighs)

I didn’t find you at home

So I left my greeting on your door

Turn the knob with ginger care

 

I have never heard your song

But I sleep all night

With your voice in my ear

 

I have never seen your face

But I am forever drawn

By the magnet of your gaze

 

I am no witness to your dreams

But I am kindred snooper to the sigh

Which pillows your nightly slumber

 

The farther I have been

The louder the music of your heart. Swallow me now

That I may dwell the softness of your Song

 

I have left you a prayer

Made of grass; wine brewed

From the rarest dew.

 

Riddle

I fly without wings

I walk the earth without legs

I bleed when hurt

I laugh like a waterfall

I am the shortest distance between two sighs

 

Tell me who I am

Another season of toil and tears

Petrol chasers are out in the street

Alas, another season of toil and tears

Petrol chasers are out in the street

Winding lines constrict the roads

Winning one litre becomes an epic feat

 

 

 

Sabuki spent three nights in a static queue

In the hungry company of bugs and milling mosquitoes

Alas, Raba spent three nights in a static queue

In the hungry company of bugs and milling mosquitoes

But the tank dried up before his turn

In this melee of furious fists and trampled toes

 

 

 

The Station Manager is king with invisible crown

Up goes his price, and down our luck

Say station Manager is king with invisible crown

Up, up goes his price and down, down our luck

With fate as volatile as the liquid gold

Our frail fortune has thinned to the very last buck

 

 

Government blames the Marketers

The Marketers blame the Government

Shio*! Government blames the Marketers

The Marketers blame the Government

Frantic motions paralyze the land

All so insane, without the littlest movement

 

 

 

We live on the ocean

And wash our hands with spittle

Alas, we live right on the ocean

And wash our hands with spittle

In a land ruled by cannibal Greed

Sense counts, indeed, for very little

*Shame!

 

RANDOM  BLUES  516 (War Blues)

Now that the cameras and crowds have left

Time to think and tell the truth

 

 

They lied their way to war

And set the world on fire

Haba, they lied their way to war

And set the world on fire

Like hogs fed on a hoax

We grunted at their bloody desire

 

 

Jane came back without a leg

Eugene returned with a missing arm

Say, Jane came back without a leg

Eugene returned with a missing arm

And pundits say war is just a game

Completely shorn of its mortal harm

 

 

Of the three children of Natasha

Only the youngest made the homeward journey

Alas, of the three children of Natasha

Only the youngest made the homeward journey

The hapless mother has lost her mind

To some emergency patriots, she’s merely funny

 

 

Bob and Billy strayed

Straight into a lethal ambush

Alas, Bob and Billy strayed

Straight into a lethal ambush

They cursed the man who proclaimed the war

His name, we’re told, is simply Bush

 

 

They author a war of blame

And send our children to die

Yes, they author a war of blame

And send our children to die

Their own they keep at home

Protected by a clever lie

 

• We are sorry this poem was stepped down last Sunday. It is hereby reproduced.