The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Osundare

  • SNAPSONG 244

    SNAPSONG 244

    Memorable moments are made of these too

    The interlock of mating roaches

    On the kitchen floor, surprised by

    Hungry footsteps and winking lamps

    The slippery smile of the sink

    As spitting faucets wage a to-to-to war

    On its aluminum silence, while oily dishes

    Dread the fury of foaming sponges

    Have you ever eavesdropped the gossip

    Of house rats as they mock

    The laughable anger of bulbous-bellied

    Landlords who feast on nibbled leftovers

    Of last night’s mousy raid.

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     Kriririi kraaaa on dripping dishes

    Sleepless rage behind the doors

    Criminal canines are quick on the job

    The ceiling is the sky

    But not for gallant geckoes

    Their slippery slide, their gritty grab

    Their whitish droppings on the suffering sofa

    Memorable moments, memorable moments

    Domestic deal, unflattered deeds

    Beyond the royal bugle, far from

     The scam in the camera’s eye

  • FOR MARK NWAGWU

    FOR MARK NWAGWU

    (Forever Chimes)

    Forever  chimes

    That guileless smile on your lips

    Cordial  like a cool, refreshing breeze

    Forever chimes

    Your  laugher, clear and vigorous

    Like the music of a friendly wind

    Forever chimes

    Catholic in their protean possibilities

    Inclusive  in their  ecumenical span

    Forever chimes

    The plural capacity  of  your tent

    Its wide and wondrous canvas

    Forever chimes

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    The polyphony of its quests

    The rousing rainbow of its dreams

    Forever chimes

    The Science of your being

    The Being of your Science

    Forever chimes

    Of that double helix

    At the crossroads of our biding essence

    Forever chimes

    Its spiral song, crimson chorus

    And vital complexities

    Forever chimes

    The seeker’s  relentless  search

    The microscope’s Eureka moments  

    Scientist, Poet, Scholar without Borders

    The season rocks to the music of your Muse

    Forever chimes….

    Title of   one  of  Professor  Nwagwu’s literary works

  • BOLA  IGE

    BOLA  IGE

    December 21, 2001

    History Never Forgets

    And enter the gunmen

    one sad and ominous night

    murder’s mandate in every bullet

    Paymasters waiting in the crook

    of night’s arms, eager

    for a convoy of corpses

    And a rude shot put out the star

    in our Christmas sky

    and the shepherds lost their way

    To the Bethlehem of our re-birth

    carols blackened into dirges

    seething every line with the anguish of our rage

    A pall fell on the yuletide feast

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    streets emptied into horrified silence

    markets wore their stalls like absent belts. . . .

    Still we  ask: Where are the fingers that pulled the trigger that night

    Where, their paymasters in powerful places?

    Waiting, still waiting

    The hunchback nation

    Cannot hide its burden

  • RANDOM SNAPS

    RANDOM SNAPS

    What can get worse

         Can also get better

    The ladder which takes us down the hill

         Has rungs right enough for our upward climb

    If you are a lover of shadows

         Don’t look for them in the darkest night

    If you live your life before the mirror

         You may end up in love with an absent idol

    Silence

         Is not the absence of

    Sound

         But its unheard alternative

    The Peace they promise

         Lives in the House of War

    They who send carpet bombs at breakfast time

         And ‘humanitarian’ bread at the close of day

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    Our obvious vulnerabilities are

         Sometimes sources of our hidden strength

    The long-expected angel

         Sometimes arrives with a monster’s mask

    Are we heading for that bend

         In the road

    Where wrong is right    

         And right is wrong?

  • TALKING WITH LAKE ONTARIO

    TALKING WITH LAKE ONTARIO

    (One liquid hint from the House of Memory)

    I fling open

    the morning curtains

    the Ontario greets my gaze

    with a rippling silence

    dull-green

    from my Westin Castle** distance

    billowing Left now

    (the last time I was here

    her swing was mellow Right)

    Down, down

    almost beyond the eye

    a steamboat tattoos her face

    with effortless gliding

    overhead,

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    a maple-tailed jet roars

    into another distance

    unmindful of the bodywork below

    (Air Canada gives you the sky

     We do it all for you)

    Seeing you again

    so many seasons later

    I ask with the pensive enthusiasm

    of a wandering rememberer: 

    Are you still the Merciful One

    In your Sorority of Lakes?

     Originally written in Toronto in April 1991; slightly amended for   publication here.

     Harbour Castle Westin Hotel, whose 17th floor was witness to the writing of this poem.

    An Air Canada commercial jingle in the 1970’s. One of my favourites.

  • FEELINGLY YOURS

    FEELINGLY YOURS

    cradled between birdsong

    and the lingering tenor

    of a blue-grey sky

    poised between chilly serenades

    and a sweat so  out of tune

    with the season’s breezeglued to a soiree of lizards

    and their red-headed nods

    in the nooky shadow of a turgid noon

    torn between tomes

    which read my thoughts

    their studied spines

    so lean and learned

    with hieroglyphs of

    unanswered summons

    taunted so forgetfully

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    by the endless honey

    of your lush alluring words

    warmed so softly

    by the absent flame

    of your quickening song. . . .

    sigh of the seasons

    the universe craves

    the steady sunrise on your brow

    step out now

    let our day begin.

    *Imuniti un-arrestability. A Yoruba coinage from a conflation of “immunity” and “impunity”

    **For a peculiarly Nigerian meaning of this word, I recommend a quick journey to Honorebu, Akeem Lasisi’s rip-roaring video.

  • We are the trees of the world

    We are the trees of the world

    (For the recent casualties of  University of Ibadan’s  Heritage Park)

    We bleed when cut

    We are the Trees of the World

    We are the Trees of the Life

    We laugh, we cry, we whisper, we shout

    We breed, we brood, we breathe 

    We carry the Planet in our careful hands

    A tender burden, historic task

    The loom and latch of a naked world

    We robe the Earth in our green embrace

    Hour by hour we lose our kin

    To waste, to war, and the senseless blaze

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    The careless axe, the haughty chain saw

    And the cannibal greed of the rich and strong 

    Behold the Spider Monkey and the Spectacled Bear

    The Butterflies, the Forest Crabs

    The Eloquent Parrot, the Sagacious Owl

    The Cool Canopy and the Travelling Roots 

    A Tree never falls alone in the forest

    It takes our Future with the crashing leaves

    The blind gold-digger, the reckless farmer

    Subject your greed to the Need of All

    We are the Trees of the world

    We are the Trees of the Life

    Pearls from the Past, flowers of the Future

    We burn when ignited, we bleed when cut

    We are the vital lobes  of the lungs of the Planet

    From Green: Sighs of  Our  Ailing Planet , Black Widow Press, 2021  

  • DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

    DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

    SNAPSONG 238    

    The food which ate my dream

         Had no teeth to call its own

    Canines which sprang out of the mouth

         Like the spikes of a laughing comb

    The shoe which bit the shoemaker’s foot

         Came straight out of a leopard’s skin

    Trodden countless times without compassion

         From pebbled patches to thorny spots

    The song sang the singer

         And the hearer trembled between the lines

    The wind which came between the trees

         Laid limp between the lips

    The night’s silence shouted

         So loud the roof rattled below the sky

    The corrugated whisper above the moon

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         Relieved the stars of their soundless wait

    Those who shun the light

         Need not regret their lack of shadows

    They who plant the midnight rainbow

         Will reap a famine of eyes

    Every house we build

         Finds habitation in our inner selves

    The wardrobes therein

         Wear us like absent costumes 

  • DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? The Honorebu Who Slapped the Law

    DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? The Honorebu Who Slapped the Law

    SNAPSONG 237    

    The Honorebu’s first question

         Was preceded with a very Honorebu slap

    So loud his neighbours thought

         It was a thunderclap

    “Who are you, wretched driver;

         What madness drove you

    To disturb my Honorebu leisure

         In the middle of an empty day?

    In my Honorably acquired mansion

         Where, between booze and boast,

    I churn out the bills which beget those laws

         That have turned Nigeria into a Paradise”

    The second slap came with an imperial swagger:

         “How dare you! Do you know who I am?”       

  • DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

    DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

    The Honorebu* Who Slapped the Law

    SNAPSONG 237    

    The Honorebu’s first question

         Was preceded with a very Honorebu slap

    So loud his neighbours thought

         It was a thunderclap

    “Who are you, wretched driver;

         What madness drove you

    To disturb my Honorebu leisure

         In the middle of an empty day?

    In my Honorably acquired mansion

         Where, between booze and boast,

    I churn out the bills which beget those laws

         That have turned Nigeria into a Paradise”

    The second slap came with an imperial swagger:

         “How dare you! Do you know who I am?”       

    Then a frightening combination of raw power and magic blustering:

         “I will make you disappear, and nothing will happen”

    King-size ego, consuming conceit

         Vintage Lawmaker of a lawless Republic

    Who “monkeys” the people and “rats” their worth

         Standing so tall on the grave of assassinated dreams

    So carefully curated 

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         This poignant parable of Nigerian imuniti**

    Its powerfool protagonist, its convoy of clowns

         Who bluff and strut beneath their tinsel crowns

    “Do you know who I am?”

         The Honorebu asked his “stupid-idiot” driver

    Challenging us, dear readers,

         To read this poem and answer his question.

    *Imuniti un-arrestability. A Yoruba coinage from a conflation of “immunity” and “impunity”

    **For a peculiarly Nigerian meaning of this word, I recommend a quick journey to Honorebu, Akeem Lasisi’s rip-roaring video.