DEAR GOODLUCK

Worshipful stars heard
Your reverence, your tongues
For you missed our boat
And you were not behind
When you left and became god

The deaf heard your prayer
Musketeers sang it vivid
Blunt crochets and lamp holders
To the tomb, away at sentry
When savannah caught up
And torched our welcome

Our boat had rocks
As it burned through
The long night to midgets
When Sango sent alien boys
His anger under the water hearth
After you became god

BIDA

Bida the Fulani tent,
Dendo’s first test at cun -
Jewel in the trough

Fulani’s torch billows forth...
The Etsu of heaven.
Puppet from the west

Market place of Wuzhizhi
Land of fertile long grain rice
Of Ndaduma’s blessings at Manko

Ndadungurugi with fishes
At hide and seek, housed sparkles of
Luggard, Zik and Royal Niger to same fate

Your cousin, Gwandu
Of purple trinkets
Seeks to overthrow, birthright

Your in-law, the Minna
Shelters cun, reincarnate
The warrior of starred crests

Bida of three play houses
Where blood and sand is god
That glorified puppet’s stool

MY FIRST

I had him between my legs

It was my first, and it ached

I laid helpless in throbbing pains

At his mercy while he raged

Gruesome and terrifying, relief was afar

We tussled and he seemed the winner

If he could, my bowels in shreds

Then he came with a loud thud

And yelled his first in this sinful world.

BABANGIDA'S WHITE ELEPHANT

Babangida's white elephant

The mammoth of lords

Before the city gate

After the town's skirt

Where no distinct mark is made

He leashed it there for rest

And it ate up our gmelina

Those tender carbon sinks

Awaiting ripening for the lumber's teeth

He brought it for a circus show

It was fed sackfuls of silver

But that place outside Kontagora

Became one more river to cross

And there it sits away from kindred

Cast away of the circus-full durbar

EDEGBO AGAIN

I have not seen your voice 

The canary of dawn's worship 

Crackling chuckles for the anger-lion's cow 

The slithering hiss from a stung heart 

My axe is raised, the heaven-lies stirred 

You will ride echo's cart 

The lull of my plea to bring you home 

My yearn, waiting to be doused

EDEGBO

Edegbo was memory

Myth with whisper's wings

Cupid's prodigal child

I bargained for your heart

And you dally-ed a rock

Then threw cheese at me

After my arms built a tomb

And you slept in its womb

We profited from the sale of your soul

Before you decided to leave me hung

And cried for the comet and its show

I told you his tinder is but ashes

But you dimmed your light

And your silence cried for my arms

The tomb made only for you-

My maleness, that old prick

After we made gains

Of your heart's droppings

Fertilizer that grows my yearn

JAWS

Aw, with this weather?

Let the bombs rain

Warmth come forth for

Those without a blanket

Merry where the cisterns leak

They will hug calabashes

And gamble away sanity

Like Zacheus, of Jenta Mangoro

They pay the taxman of spirits

And kill the fake heart within

Those without a heart fall

Within Jaws - the city from chaos

Where anyone with some cash

Gets to thrust at Jaws

Sensitive mandibles between legs

There it burns the most

The rampaging fire in his tap

Seeking to be doused

LORD OF ALL FEARS

Feet don’t fail me now

My demons becloud again

Wont for more than we bargained

Poke me dream, will you?

Dally your barrage of goodies –

Me of fairies treat

For my placebo smolders

Surety and party, locked at Doom

Like the flogged of bush-babies to penury

Fairy or djin, hunt me the lantern

Gold and silver to my feet

Love and power – the heart’s fill afterwards

LOVE LOST

I lost my appetite for love

So I sent its fruit-laden jar tumbling

And ate its raw bitterness

Word Eaters

Be kind with words, mildly eat

Not with oil of the furnace's fury

For then, the tongue shall burn sore

Neither from cold's slumber, dab

It's sludge would give you away

But in thought and gentle caress

Eat them, well cooked

EGUNJE

Of corrupt politicians and technocrats, egunje is the order of the day. Bureaucracy has an increased tenancy, and the governance system has suffered. The polity have been on the receiving side, still craving for the dividends of democracy to trickle down to them to the grassroots. Oh how, we claim that our colonial masters did sow the seed of corruption right in the fabric of a budding nation. Today, I wonder if Nigerians, were not born with corruption running in our DNA. We are wont for synonyms for it - nepotism, favoritism, self-aggrandisement. But the average Nigerian is corrupt. I am not an exception either. But for our nation to forge ahead and awake from its slumber, the sleeping giant must rid itself of this canker worm.

To this effect, #EgunjeInfo was born. It's made its rave on twitter, and for once, when people say Nigeria's youth are only keen to engage good governance online and hide their faces when the real action beckons, we are taking the step of showing up with our faces with a zeal to fight corruption. Ladi Kwali Hall at the Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Conference Centre it is by 3pm today, and #EgunjeInfo comes to town - alive. While there has been an online campaign with hashtag, poetry, essay and photography competitions, we are taking it to the next level. And I would be in the number, wanting to rid my country of corruption. I liken corruption this though:

The priest in rhythmic vociferity chants

e'gun je... e'gun je... e'gun je

Scary, how my cowries vanish in a rush

THE SECRET ADMIRER

Indulged by beauty
Polished in the courts of the gods
Guile unmatched, so terrific
Heads unduely turn, adulations abound
But the secret admirer looks on
In the hope that fates swing you his way
As he in long-suffering, yearns for you
And lurks in shells, admiring your beauty
Tarry no more, in returning his love
For dear, as the old moon wanes
So his love lingers

AN ODE TO POETRY

Man's language in pleasure
The most perfect of speeches
Brings nearer the truth –
Truth seen with passion

Truth united with pleasure
Calls imagination to the help of reason

Caused by intense realization,
Life explores its amazement
The spontaneous overflow of
Powerful feelings – emotions;
Emotions put in measure

Its ingenuity translated
In to language busy about imitation
Life really, is poetry.

INITIATION

I sit half awake, half amok
Carried away by the chants
Of empty scary black masks
Droning chants of nineteenth century druids
Seasonal migrants to our lands
Coming with the birds to breed
Souls and life taken with them.
On the day gboya* and I made four
Exchanges of souls, oaths cursed
Dust mixed with the ceremonial broth
Cooking at the square, now four days
Humans used to skin drums
Bones made in to khalils^
remnants end up as bodily markings
Away to a place strange
Where dementors are harmless
And back through an interswitch
here am ushered in to manhood.

* - masquerade in Nupe (A Nigerian dialect)
^ - A Jewish flute