The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Osundare

  • When sunset comes to the limping lion

    When sunset comes to the limping lion

    (To Jibola who sent the video whose subject inspired this poem)

    Countable

    From a hundred yards away,

    His harp-string ribs

    Bared

    To the wondering eye,

    His remaindered rumps

    Prisoned in a sorry skin

    So rough and wrinkled

    On his leprous loins

    That once upright tail

    Heading south now

    Flaccid and forlornly motionless

    Long gone,

    The roar which preceded the pounce

    The cannibal claw and the crimson conquest

    Matted now

    The mane which mastered the moments

    When the legs were fast and the lungs were long 

    Now

    Antelopes play with his feeble paws  

    The deer mock his lawless legs

    Sunset

    So sudden, so uncivil, the carpet grass

    Now taller than the erstwhile Giant of the Jungle

    Leap to limp, soaring to sorry

    The Lion learned too late

    The inevitable temporality of brutal power   

    Riff on the title of Felix Mnthali’s book of poems, When Sunset Comes to Sapitwa.

  • Snapsong 236

    Snapsong 236

    Soundprints of the rolling drums

    (for Wally Serote, Teller of the Tough Tale)

    Let the drums roll

         Let songbirds  unfurl their wings

    Let a rallying chorus spring forth

         From the music of waiting proverbs

    One sigh, one sky

         One night, a thousand stars

    One purple laughter above the hueless whisper

         Warm handshakes across the oceans……

    The winking night

         Plods towards a cloudless dawn

    No matter how wide the wanderer’s ways

         History is never far from the home address

    Bridge over the gulf

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         One mouth, many tongues

    A million, million rooms

         In the house that friendship built

    From the South to the East

         From the Blue Mountains to the Yellow River

    Let the rolling drums possess the wind

         Let willing legs obey their accents

    and References to A  Tough Tale,  The Night Keeps Winking, and History Is the Home Address, three of Serote’s collections of poems.

  • Snapsong  235

    Snapsong  235

    Wish I were the answer

         Which comes before the question

    The hidden star in the firmament

         Of your night of magic murmurs   

    What happens when your massive wealth

         Flows freely from the misery

    Of the swindled millions plodding city pavements

         In search of their absent dreams

    What happens to those

         Who measure their height

    By the genuflection of those

         Who pray to absent gods

    What happens to the missing Amen

         Of their frantic prayers

    And the vulpine Shepherds

         Who break their fast on tender loins

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    What happens to the compass

         Which loses its way

    And legacies which hit the road

         With crooked legs

    What happens to the pod

         Which comes without a seed

    What happens to the masquerade

         Which loses its mask in the marketplace?

    Snapsong-235Download
  • Snapsong 234

    Snapsong 234

    Another first day

         Of the tenth month

    Of another year

         And its caravan of memories

    Seasons come

         Seasons go

    But the sky looms above our dreams

         An umbrella with a thousand stiches

    How I wish I could shout “Happy Birthday,

         Dear Country”, dance all the way from

    Our Delta doldrums to our Sahel fringes

         To a national song free of “native” and “tribe”

    My tongue quarrels with my mouth

         The anniversary wine turns sour

    In my pensive goblet, as Hunger devours the land

         And bandits thrive in their impunitive exploits

    Corruption slays the sinews of State

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         Rulers fatten on prodigal excess

    While the ruled perish in preventable penury

         The best of our brains are fleeing in droves

    The Niger knows, the Benue believes

         A country so bountifully endowed

    But so mindlessly misruled, waiting, still waiting

         For the road from blight to Bless

    Snapsong-234Download
  • CONNECT

    CONNECT

    I sought your steps

    In the forest of the sun

         Every leaf told me

         You had gone 

          The way of the wind

    I sought your face 

    In the mirror of the lake

         Every fish told me

         To seek you out

         In the roar of the waves

    I sought your voice

    In the house of Memory

         Every echo craved your ear

         In the distant chambers

         Of our forgotten fragments

    The ear longs for

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    The company of the mouth

    Bony consonants crave

    The flourish of fleshy vowels

    The bird thirsts for

    The melody of the song

    Deserts pine for

    The advent of the rain

    The Moon is mother of the Sun

    The Sun surely is the father of the Moon

    Life’s precious meaning flows

    Quietly from the terror of Death

  • SNAPSONG 233

    SNAPSONG 233

    Ode to Friendship

    Good friendship is gooder than gold
    It glows, never glitters,
    In its battle against
    The demons of darkness

    Its givers never Brutus you
    When you turn your back
    Nor crave a cunning Cassius
    To viper your virtue

    They laugh when you laugh
    They mourn when you mourn
    They are happy fellow hues
    In Life’s capacious rainbow

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    Ever so often,
    They are your kindest critics
    Who cut through your vanity
    With the cruel kindness of the surgical knife

    In times of dire need
    You can share one grain of rice
    And leave the dining table
    Contended and gratefully calm

    Good friendship is gooder than gold
    It bends and never breaks
    So malleable and glorious
    In life’s tempestuous fire

  • SNAPSONG   233

    SNAPSONG   233

    Ode to Friendship

    Good friendship is gooder than gold

         It  glows, never glitters,

    In its  battle  against

         The  demons of darkness

    Its givers never Brutus you

         When you turn your back

    Nor crave a cunning Cassius

         To viper  your virtue        

    They laugh when you laugh

         They mourn when you mourn

    They are happy fellow hues

         In Life’s  capacious rainbow

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    Ever so often,      

         They are your kindest critics

    Who cut through your vanity

         With the cruel kindness of the surgical knife

    In times of dire need

         You can share one grain of rice

    And leave the dining table

          Contended and gratefully calm 

    Good friendship is  gooder than gold

         It bends and never breaks

    So malleable and glorious

         In life’s tempestuous fire

    SNAPSONG-233Download
  • SNAPSONG 232

    SNAPSONG 232

    To walk through thorns and thistles
    Into the House of Plenty
    And crawl back later
    With bushels of Hunger

    To dwell all day long
    On the bank of a river
    Then die of thirst
    In the evening hours

    To wade through
    A welter of words
    Condemned to trite tales
    And hackneyed idioms

    To reap silence from thunder
    Happy consonants from
    The cacophony of un-uttered proverbs
    The serenity of sinless syllables

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    To curse the axe
    And woo the wood
    To chastise the miner
    And defend the Mountain

    The Past, most times,
    Is the Future we often forget
    There are countless rooms
    In the House of Memory

  • SNAPSONG 231

    SNAPSONG 231

    Randon Snaps

    As clearly as the Future
    Predicts the Past
    So boldly as forthcoming rains count
    The teeth of unborn droughts

    Like the tendril which foretells
    The tribe of the tuber
    And the yarn of the yam which
    Echoes the narrative of the barn

    What seems
    Is not always what is
    What is is hardly ever a faithful fore-
    Print of what is to be

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    The lobster which swaggers
    Like a dreadful scorpion
    Let it take another look
    At the fire in its rival’s tail

    A thousand stars cannot outshine
    The majesty of the moon
    No matter how hard the lake may strive
    It can never outsize the mighty ocean

    Let the fawning tailor
    Mind the appetite of the scissors
    A cap too large may make a mockery
    Of the owner’s head

  • SNAPSONG   227

    SNAPSONG   227

    A  Daniel Has Come To Judgement

    (To Dan Izevbaye, Unforgettable Teacher)

    Economical with words

         But not so with wisdom

    His quiet pen provokes the open page

         To a protean profundity

    Of rare richness and pungent sagacity

         Rounded in its rhythm

    Polyglot in its uttering

         Mellow with the mythic melody of the Muse

    Red, red run his favourite books

         His rainbow harvests on our luminous shelves

    His eyes set and steady on our Wisdom Ways

         His Voice, keen and quiet, fathers a thousand songs

    Modest and methodical,

         This timeless thinker who plumbs

    The leanings of the deepest words

          Veteran Interpreter who cracks

    The code of knotty idioms

         The Song is his soulmate, the story his solace

    This shy Warrior who slays

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         The Dragon of   Bullying Nescience

    Born with a book in his hand

       This Unforgettable Teacher

    Who plies the fertile space

         Between the head and the heart

    How many trumpets can we blow 

         For this advocate of life and love

    How many tons of gold can reward

         His immeasurable capacity?

    SNAPSONG-227Download