The Price

Gentle and calm spirit of love
Breezes in soothingly
Like the tender wind of dusk
Caressing my troubled spirit
Cooling off the embers of throbs
Grieving my tumultuous being

Your calm I need not now
But your rods and chisels
Now I need
The hard hitting of your hammers
The peelings I desire
That tranquility only the noise can bring

Break me down O gentle spirit
Wreck the walls of flawly fondness
Rip me off this slippery highway
Rid me of my tresured vile playthings
Drag me form the dining of my cravings
Stand for me when I get to that sinking zone

Flush the stinky slime
Tear open my graspy palms
Don't mind my sweltering tears
Let your rod descend in the field of tussles
Be ruthless at work and be a sulfuric gentle fire
Am just a helpless puppet on sin's strings

Yes I bleed now cut loosed
All covered in bruises
The wounds fresh and open
Down on my knees it stings
The recovery nigh
Harvested for the holy hills

Tomorrow is Now

Tomorrow is now
Many a today we have squandered
While yesterdays have records of our spinelessness
Oppressed by the shadows of terror
Our cheeks have they slapped
And our heads they kick about

Tomorrow is now
That cleansing we need for this wreckage
Too much blood spillage
Too many overpriced and wanton official voyage
Too many years of voltage outage
Too many years of treasury leakage
Too many justice miscarriage

Tomorrow is now
That purging we need
Our lands are belching drunks
Drunk from the flaming goblets of blood
Terror has power and might in chains
Let their gluttonous blood wash
As I lick the sodium off their steeled faces

Tomorrow is now
The hat has put honour to shame
The centenary  madness just proved
A fruitless confab won't do
When reprobates speak for me
We have had enough of grey strands and rots
Now is the time for fresh red pints

Tomorrow is now
A rising no bullet can stop
When the jungle realizes its strength
The Arab spring can attest to that
Laos nods in agreement
Tomorrow ripe for the taking
Cursed if we sit and watch

Tomorrow is now
I demand an explanation
Why I have to beg for my needs
When I should be asking for luxuries
Why you think you are just good enough for me
If I won't fight
Where is the work

Tomorrow is now
Let the drums beat a revolt
From Modakeke  to Aba
Let the furious volcanoes of change erupt
From Kafancha to Bonny
Who will lead? I was asked
Maybe the damsel Sarafina will.

TORN

Oh my heart my heart
My core crest
Though large a chest
But can take only one pearl
As  my head like a pirate raids the islands of bevies

Oh I tried I tried
I did ran away so many times
But my heart my heart keeps racing back
Heeding to her soundless calls
Bond to a cordless tie

Oh  my head my head
Will you just let me be?
Your ways too hasty
So unruly and ruthless you are
Thou clock hand compass

Oh this war this war
Raging in me
Thou head and thy allies
Like a boa constricts me
For a tempestuous and tempting treaty

Oh my soul my soul
Thou mediator
Calm  thou calleth
It's time to drop the arms
For the Lord's peace talk

Rain Reign

Suddenly the scorching sun sets in surrender
As the gentle clouds in gloomy frown decree a recess
The celestials announce an awakening
Out of deep slumber the thunder rumbles
Then the happy go-lucky lightning flashes around

The thirsty crusts sigh in relief
As the overzealous wind
Announces the message of the skies belligerently
Slamming the doors and scattering the piles
Then the pelting in ferocity

The stale air smells fresh now
Conveying a concoction
Of the mixed feelings of nature
Cooling the nasal canals
While the rainbeats tickle the ears

The leaves are greener
The stems are darker
After a torrential bath
Brighter the pebbles smile today
Washed anew are the tars

The  umbrellas rise to salute the season
The canals go feverishly drunk
The gutters belch in gluttony
The urchins scamper in pants
As mothers armed with screams give a hot chase

Now the incomplete yearns for a blanket
While the whole knits to that fraction
For the warmth the cold brings
The rain announces it's reign
The earth is washed anew.

LORD OF THE SEASONS

There be times
When the petals wither
The sleeky glassy river
Steams all up
To the patched throats of the water pots

There be times
When the sun cannot rage
And the stars are covered in blankets
When the clouds really have nothing to offer
And the desert belches

There be times
When the ink stares helplessly at the snowy sheet
And the chords no longer command the stringed notes
Then the earth stings the seeds to rot
And there be no avian piping sails

There be times
Even when the dawn needs a sip
And the crickets dishonor the reprobate night
That time money cannot buy
And terror gags power 

This be times
To laud the Lord of seasons
Not a time for the noose
It goes around and comes around
Ask the Lord of the seasons

FREELOCK

Just saw it
My eyes now opened
Awaken  with a scroll of a tragic mystery
Armed with a timeless riddle
Of what is not and yet is

The earth from vain urns
Have drunk wine from slashed veins
Of blind warriors for it
Men celebrate it
But will never be

Suddenly I went mad again to think
This realm with no authority
No one looking down from cloud nine
No one to give accounts to
No Lord No Master

That sphere where laws do not exist
Where no one dies
Yet I can kill but no sentence
Where love and hate has no connotation
And my conscience is my slave

Then I peered again into this world
Where am free from my desires
And lusts do not swing me high like a wild chariot
Powered by drugged stallions of selfishness
Red eyed with the burgundy of greed

A world where good is bad
And bad is good
No divine manacles
No cares
No end

Where atheists revel
And death gets drunk every night
And the wind whistles loosed chains
While the earth swallows up boundaries
And the sea takes a stroll beyond the shores

Now am vexed with this scroll to burn
For as the spirits have no shadow
And the beasts no soul
So neither realm exists
It exists only in dusts and ashes
 

IMMORTALS

Only few have outrun death
Only few have refused to be silenced by death
Only few have worked enough to pay him the debt
Not to be confined in the earth's depth

Countless have been gobbled up by the grave
While time has sealed up many in a jiffy
And like the dew in the dawn fades away
At the yawning of the sun so they vanish

These are wounds to the wombs
Cuts to the earth
Those that give birth to scars
And refuse to be healed

But their spirits history to adopt
Their breathing paths records to keep
Their heroics like the aged mountains stand the striving of seasons
While their villainies run the race with time
 
They are dead yet alive
Existing than the living
Their ghosts wear the garb of their deeds
To dance around the eternal narrow memory lane

LORD OF THE DEVIL

The Creator had declared
On that fateful day
Behold, the man is become
As one of us to know good and evil
An enlightenment of doom

Who art thou greatest Villain?
Who hath beget thee?
Nothing like the Holy one
In whom is no guile
Where art thy sordid abode?

Thou art torment the world
Shaken the heavenlies to offend
Should I stand in awe of you?
Oh little fruit
sealed in that tree in our perfect garden

Oh beautiful Lucifer
Programmed with  pristine virtues
The pride of the heavenlies
Bought by the greatest villain to wanton displays
Did thou taste of the fruit also?

The villain hath set its eyes to overthrow
Needing a vessel to possess
Lucifer himself to present to the vile one
His programme to alter
In that abominable encounter

Greatest villain
The heavenlies sure knew thee
Banished into that fruit
Lord of the devil
Robed in sinful scarlet

WHEAT AND TARES

Tonight will I die again
Butchered by corporeal fear
Behind these bars I anticipate
The scary horror of the gallows

I die like this every night
Buried in my coffin of tears
Startled out of nightmares
By the crushing boots of the jailers

Night and morning
Do I see the noose dangle
Hear the innocent shriek
Feel my body go limp

Being at the right place
Well at the wrong time
Handed the capital punishment
With Habeas Corpus mocked

No attorney to plead my cause
For what? regretably I don't know
Kidnapped by the state
Without trial for eternity

The wheat and tares
From seven to seven do they burn
Many plead not guilty
But falls to the stone heart of the noose

ODE TO THE MOLUE

Oh brakeless colossus of the road!
Never tired of an overload
Bears like a hulk its crazy compartments thoroughly filled up
Even greedily to the roof top

Oh king of the express!Its rickety and haggard frame
Not a barrier to its fame
As it commands respect
From the road worthy elects

Its rider gazes with eyes blood-Shot
Syndrome of dry gin of several shots
Dishing out threats
With foul breathe

The commuters stuffed and packaged
Sometimes seeing the potholes on the expresssway
Through holes in punctured metallic floor
An omen of an imminent wreckage

As it towers high
As the king sitting on the throne of woes
With souls hanging from its wings
It devours in its own time

He never asks for his own share of the fares
From the greedy collectors
Neither does he care about their welfare
For he collects his bloody royalty in due time

STEPS

What man knoweth a treasure spot
Like a blind bat he traverses
The bright dark tunnel of life
The Omniscient orders the steps
He knoweth the numbers

Where the benefactors tread
The spot of ambush of marauders
No bat knoweth save the steps that lead either way
The gazelle falls under the paws of a lion
And the lion thanks his step but the doomed prey?

Maybe 250 steps will take me to a setting of doom
I pray to trek 2 less steps
An unnecessary tantrum will do
A failure of the alarm clock then I welcome
To solve the life equation

It's always like a coincidence
When you want to take garri
Then you walk past a coconut tree
Only for a Coconut to drop after taking a step forward
You give thanks for protection and food

You sluggard! perhaps 1000 steps
Will lead you to your goldmine
But like a snail you took 2000
You damned! always in a hurry
You took  10 hurried steps into that bus of waste

You hasty fella!
You needed 50 steps to meet
The bones of your bones
But then you took 20
Ending up with the bones of your pains

This mysterious mathematician
Calculates life and death
Success and failure
One good step at a time
Just will do

RAISED FOR THE GALLOWS

He wiped his soaked brows
With his concrete hard hands
For many hopeful vain years
Of course laying claim
To only two sweat worn out shirts

He paid those excruciating fees
With his balanced diet
Fed that mouth with hot beads of sweat
Clothed that body from meagre wages
And guarded him with his life

Where is the price of bitter sowing?
Becoming nothing
To raise the seed of hope
Praying Demeter smiles
At this fruitful doomed seed

The sun shone brightly for harsh years
As the seed grew into a tree
Hope yes beautiful hope for the sower
Days of succor are nigh
For my tired vibrating hands

The nation calls for the tree
To taste its fruits for just a dozen month
While the callers have their Irokos and Mahoganies
Thriving well in fertile faraway farms
The sower lets go reluctantly

The fruits on the tree coming out still green
With the sower salivating expectantly
For the fruitful day of harvest
But alas! the tree was axed down
By deranged lumberjacks

Alas! Ares struck
All gone with the air
Funneled down into the gallons of tears
The harvest now a a minute silence
A paycheck for the torrid sacrifice

PAIN SEASONS

The sun has scorched our skins
For many military years
While the ozone layer recklessly depleted
For only few democratic years
Our rivers have gone dried
And the aqua citizens migrating
Let it rain

The clouds are thick dark
The people can clearly see
But when will it rain?
So much evaporation into the sky
Yet so many dry seasons
With throats of subjects dry in drought
Let it rain

The dried skins are clinging to bones
As dried mouths are wide opened
Expecting the promised downpour
Instead of droplets
Not even enough to fill a cup
Nor suffice the eternally parched throats
Let it rain

We ask for rain
We do not mind a flood
Let it break the dams
Let there be a refreshing
We have had cupfuls of tears
We yearn for this flood
Let it rain

The dwellers in the skies
Are quite filled
But these supposed rainmakers
Are storing up greedily in gallons and tanks
Billions of litres looking down indifferently
At the dry land
Let it rain

The dark cloud we see
A result of evaporation
From our sweaty skins and oily lands
Enough of the drizzles
Enough of these painseasons
We need a cycle
So let it rain

STILLL WAITING

Born I was into this vain culture
Yes in it I was nurtured
Inured with this needless torture
By these executive vultures

These tunes of being in irony
In my teenage years have I danced to in agony
Never experienced living in bountiful harmony
Due to this ruthless hegemony

Youthfully I hoped for a wind of change
Sadly blown away by men greedily deranged
Out of my finger range
In this land so strange

Now I am used to these potholes
Blind am I to them as a mole
In a city with conflict with electricity
My adulthood spent in gratitude to the generator's generosity

Now am all grey and old
Ripe to join the spirit fold
As I watch my coffin
Still optimistic of the future offerings.

ICHABOD

Mourn thou besieged walls of Jerusalem
Cry thou desecrated temple of Zion
Let the obituaries of mitre
Adorn the walls of abode of worship
While the altars salivate sanctified funeral rites

When did uranium become an incense
To be burnt sulphurically and explosively
In His sanctuary
By bloodlust ghoulish preists
Without the Almighty being incensed

Doesn't He care anymore?
Now trepidation in collar creeps in
Preaching doom on the pulpits of our hearts
Are the angels of these sanctuaries on sabbathicals?
Guess we are not seeing what the omnipotent one sees

As the walls are round about Jerusalem
He clearly declared
But now thou art in ruins
Hath He commanded the house to be defiled
The courts fill with slains also?

O father Abraham
Against western englightenment
They claimed they are
Howbeit the no blast in the class rooms
Save for where two or more are gathered seemingly for thee

Ishamael's hand is hot
Against Israel's favoured frame
The filthy cleansing is on
As Zion matches on with Olive branches
To the bloodlust Haramites

PEARLY

She is pristinely coy
Not a sex toy
To be played with by the licentious boys
Her ways give me joy

Her radiant smiles
Send me miles
Away further than the Nile
Into a realm of no rile
Thoughts of her gives me no bile
Because she plays me no wiles
None in my mental file

I long for her to marry
Though it seems now to tarry
My beautiful wonder
So tender and makes me grow fonder
And daily romantically ponder
Any ripper to tear us asunder
I reply with thunder

THE NECESSARY TABOO

Left it was untendered
Struggling for rightful attention
This heir in its fiefdom
The alien adulated
Enthroned with great reverence

Howbeit is it now a taboo
To speak my language to get a boo
Now my mother tongue inimical to learning
Just as my food is unhygienic in nutrition
Now as a Roman must speak Greek

What need for me to bear a name in my native tongue
That I cannot unravel
Having a time table in my home
Where my mother allows me to speak her tongue
Only during the weekends

My folks do not even care
If am not taught Yoruba in school
But rush in frowns to demand for phonics
So I can speak through my nose
Like an imbecile

I say bon jour they marvel
Now I have to speak Mandarin
While Fagunwa writhes in pain
And Alawiye watches in horror
The gradual demise of their ingenuity

This language is cherished yonder
And they are growing with it fonder
Coming here to display it to our wonder
Alas! How can? We wonder
Struck in awe with careless thunder

Now it has packed its cases
Stocked in parcels cargo bound
Through a vortex to land not unknown
For someday we may have to pay through our nose
To learn Yoruba not in Ife but in Oxford

THE HUMAN GALLOW

Just in the night
That night of all nights
Carelessly unrehearsed he left the door ajar
Taking an airy slumber
With his spirit fully awake

Alas! whoredom crept in
The smell of razing concupiscence
Caught his fatigued nose
As his ears twitched in response
To the noise of lustful silence

Lazily his eyelids disengaged
From their mutual tenderness
As the air on his epidermis
Rose in irritability
To the caressing breeze of carnality

With all senses fully awake
He jerked to reality
And there she was topless
Her waist wrapped
With a skimpy towel

He sprang up star dazed and star gazing
The air in the room defiled
Thickening and evaporating
As it condensed on his body
While he dripped like the honeycomb

Her eyes amorously imploring
And out of her venomous lips
Oozed alluring words
Ornamental darts piercing the peaceful soul
She let loose the towel

His eyes fixed at her seductive frame
His senses now running riot
And hormones in tempestous discordance
The heart no longer beating but vibrating
His world fixed momentarily on an erection

He stood melting away
In the furnace of passion
Lost in Lust
With a noose dangling deceptively before him
Now he loved to die

The door was open
He was free to flee
But  chained down
And manacled by warm caress
And that power of old

He suddenly reasoned with life
As he saw his soul waved goodbye
He took to flight
The ground repelling his sole
The strongest man ever to live

As he ran yet he saw her stand
On his harassed mind
As he sped forward being chased
By the shadows of Jezebel
His thoughts raced backward

WITH WINGS

I pray not to have wings like a chicken
Never to do the frightened flights

I wish not to have wings like a peacock
For soon will I become too proud

I desire not the wings of a duck
For then will I be seen as too laid back and indolent

If I wings like a parrot
I chatter much and do less

I cherish not those of an ostrich
Then am I big for nothing

If I have wings like an owl
I just sit and watch things happen

If I have wings like a bat
I do too much without vision

If I have wings like a hawk 
I use mine to perpetrate evil

If I have wings like a turkey
Mine are only good to be roasted

If I have wings like a pigeon
Mine are good for caged flights

If I have wings like a dove
I use mine for harmless ventures not to ride the storms

But now I have wings like an eagle
And I ride with glee through storms and mountains

CAKE WINNERS

Who will help these helpless helpers?
Who have become helpful hustlers
Against the code of divine provision
Becoming cakewinners
To the delight of the breadlosers

Watch as the cakewinners
Jump off those beds
Hopping hurriedly dishevelled  around the living rooms
Running after those over punctual staff buses
A daily predawn ritual

Maids of horror
Have taken over those homes
Serving as mothers
To those motherless children
Whose mothers are well alive

The hugs of these maids do suffice the kids
And their melodious lullabies set them at rest
Enough they get from these maids
And do not care about the faces
Of hustlers they rarely see

The breadlosers of course
Cut the corners with the caring maids
Lick their fingers daily
After each delicious meal
Prepared by the assistant wives

The hustlers do well to get the cheques
Good enough to buy goodies
Always presented on their behalf
By assistant mothers
While the bread losers count their gains