DEW ON A BREAST:

Born virgin, a Mary
Candle lights place for offering
Words from kissed lips to God
Prayers from fucked mind in gaol
She’s the sinner she doesn’t want
She’s her shadow denied

From the rumbling outside,
Comes the lightening spark
Beeping her own wrongs

Steps down her lane
Graves downed her lame
Salvation hasn’t arrived
But she seeks the dew

Just on her breast

DAY OF IMPERFECTION…

I am your imperfect lover
Mistaking your lips for your ear
Whispering sound into it
Forgoing that act of kisses

I am your body lord
Caressing your thigh as you sigh
For your high side behind
Encroaching my slum against my wishes

I am your deity
I drink from your libations
Tongue panting like a Panda
Place me well
Hold me close
Put it right
It’s my first,
My very first…

MY TWO LIVES:

As I drip in the blood of my tears,
My happiness and hopes
I flip to this page uncovered,
My lives,
Two are they
One is African
The other is Caucasian
The first is black while the latter, dark
Black and dark
Make me stark
A stark brother in this brothel

My two lives
Tears and fears
Ears and mouths
Emotions and caution
Denial and retrieval
I love and I hate
My lives…two
Wool and wood
Soft and finished
Strength and weakness
Here I present…my lives!

Our FATE?

Take my hand
Let’s take a walk down memories
Let me show you burnt hearts
Rough roads leading to dreams
Darkened hamlets, lights? Never!
Strong rooms made weak in weeks
Watch! Step not on this blood,
It’s of years of shaved beards
Last touched was in centuries

Climb unto my back
This spillage stinks
Let me have you shown furnaces once home
Debris once humans
Hips once play ground
Ditch once a stream
Lovelorn, once loved

Do not shed tears
I’ll cheer you up
I’ll bribe you through joy
Bake you a nation’s notion poison –
- Freedom of your souls.
We are bound by our faiths
We leap to walking
Hips and thighs suffers pains

Wipe your tears
With my scarf
And laugh again
It’s never real but try
It may just be our fates.

LET THE cHiLdREn PLAY

Come across the streets
With smiles nicely worn
With friends proudly found
Come, come and make your footprints
Here in the navel of our souls
Here in the shelter of laughter and happiness

Choose not to scare us,
Our fathers
Make us to come forward,
Our mothers
Let the children play!

Let them play pitfalls and pick balls
Let them round the world in Swings
Let them fly with the Merry
Make them, happy
Make life sweeter
Sing them, songs in sincerity
Practice patience without pretence
Let them play!

All around Africa
Send goggles of warmth across
Pick flowers and make them fine
Kiss their wrongs and embrace their steps
Show them the stars…
Count along with them 1, 2, 3
Read aloud A B C, see?
They are the future
Our strong builders

We are your songs,
We’ll wipe those frowns
Mend those ways
Nit the nest when aged, only
If you let the children play…

Dedicated to the Weeping African Child
© Nwilo Bura-Bari V 2009

IF I DIED LOVING YOU

Would you stop and carry home
My remains?
Would they be taken to my land?
The ground, and the casket,
Would it be homemade?
My life and legacies
Would you make them known?
Amongst couples and children
Amongst women and men
Parents and guardians?

If I died loving you,
Let my name be sane and blissful
Let my soul be laid in the tomb with sprites
Make my heart at rest with the earth
Shave my sorrow as a journey
That has found rest in a youngster
A maid that has seen a beautiful life

If I died loving you
Poor and wretched, make my body clean
Borrow water for my bathe
Ask friends to clothe me
Console siblings to mourn with ease
Tell my neighbors to never forget
That I love them despite my wrongs

If I died a single man
A single day should be for silence
No mingled man should touch my body
Only my sister
My very own sister, you

If I leave mother behind
Make her know I care
Tell her I have to leave
For the love I have for you, my Love!

HOPE IS COMING!

Have you seen that shaky smile from her hairy face?
Have you seen the joy that drags her through her age?
The love she shares with her children?
Even when daily meal is like daily death
Have you seen her shaky, awesome smiles?

Have you been to her heart lately?
The very fine field of non-ceasing joy,
Meaningful toils?
Better means to making life Pleasant
No peasant, but for her young, brilliant!

Have you seen her today?
The mother of joy
Overseer of our bruises
The last prayer-maker while we lay in bed.
See her,
Watch her, young but aged
Finding joy in all she does
This day,
Hope is coming to Africa

Her joy is like the curly peel from an orange
Sending letters of freedom down spines
The smell from the chime at night
Radiates joy around her life,
Mama Africa
You fathered all we can
Though as one
I celebrate your age
You’ve seen so much, yet happy
You’ve been through lots yet flapping.
The bloods, the love of war
You’ve seen the forces of rapes
In our world
But happy and lively you are
Mother,
The African mother
With you,
Hope is coming!

Bees and honey
Trees and money
We shall sing round you
Hug you and call you
The African mother,
For hope is coming tomorrow!

DEDICATED TO ALL UN-CELEBRATED MOTHERS IN AFRICA AND THE WORLD

AT LARGE

FROM MY MIND PAGES

If I were to tell her one thing before leaving this world,
It would be a plain, blank lie.
It would be the saga of a life time
A phone call by a dead groom
A mad touch of a leaper Lover, but
A sweet kiss from a toothless caring mother

From my mind pages I cry
To your bosom for peace
To your house of wonders for ease
To your castle of Babel for care
Take me as I am
For I am changed

I am transformed from a young messy chicken
To an eagle
I have changed to love with my eyes closed
Minds open
And ears in awe
I am tendering my appeal as a long gone son
A prodigal lover at your mercy

It’s heavy and feverish for me
The chili pepper you placed on my wounded heart
Has died from my disease,
Loneliness
My visions are empty.
Would you, please
Come into my heart and see?
My mind pages fade
My old lady’s decayed
My kept loin unveiled
Stay around and watch keenly, my mind pages
As it stinks
Sinks and brings drinks, made of apology

THE WORLD AND US

May I make for you, a presentation?

Stand here, by my side
Look there by his side
Hearts are what you are seeing
Parts of love is what they are living

Come home a bit,
Search my drawer
Find there a gift
The rising sun
A son’s song sung in victory
Is what they are sharing

To us,
What have we?
Pierce and fractured tents
Bent and wrongly nurtured souls
Stiff and bleak pictures
Sieved and confused future

May I make you an offer?
Another offer?
This time,
My words
I…I….I….love you!

THE LISTENING POET

From the onset of the onyx I make this promise
I call these worries
I snipe this fingers
I remember this concept
To be a true born child of mama
To be a better player of the flute
To be a better singer of melodies
To call on hearts to opportunities
I wish me a listening poet.

They say he cares
Some say he fears
I know he hears
In looks profoundly leer
I choose…to listen

Pray me a god
Show me its throne
Make me a home
Let be alone
With him,
Only him
The listening poet…

I order!
Come out
Drums out
Claps harped
Horns blown
Might shown
The poet listens…

This weather of breeders
Shows up to dreamers
Fast spent in Rivers
My years as I age
I choose,
He that is troublesome
Handsome to thunderstorms
Listen!
The listening poet is listening…

IN PRAYER...

You could teach me how to love all and sundry
How to hate hatred
How to spell lettered war
You could teach me how to be a better man
A better child to my mama
A better lover to those concubines

I would learn
Pin my ears to your lips
I would yearn
For more of your knowledge
I would express and answer your questions

I will be better again
I will love with all I have
I will be meek to those whose oil is milked
And life is in bleak
I will stay from trouble…

I will learn the ways of old
Peace will reign in our hearts
I’ll learn to be true again

Just take up the stick and point…
I will read along….I promise
I want to be a happy baby,
So Ogoni will reckon and hearts like turtledove
Will coo my fears…

HIS CALL

It’s gentle upon this hard rock
Where man’s triple doubles trouble
It’s safer on this rubble
Where a lady’s babble over the devil
It’s nothing to something when dream’s deferred
The wake up is sung
And the take up is our heel!

On this mountain,
Rainfall is man’s fall
Roll call is all odd
This cord is fast called
The wake up!

Anthem of measles teasels
Fountain of breezes eases
Itches go those lashes
Our thatches hatch…
Dreams fail
Ogoni, pail
Monocles in chronicles….
Wake up!

‘O ye men of little faith’
Bring unto me you
Your soul
For the fire
Purification in rendition…
Wake up!

HIS CALL

It’s gentle upon this hard rock
Where man’s triple doubles trouble
It’s safer on this rubble
Where a lady’s babble over the devil
It’s nothing to something when dream’s deferred
The wake up is sung
And the take up is our heel!

On this mountain,
Rainfall is man’s fall
Roll call is all odd
This cord is fast called
The wake up!

Anthem of measles teasels
Fountain of breezes eases
Itches go those lashes
Our thatches hatch…
Dreams fail
Ogoni, pail
Monocles in chronicles….
Wake up!

‘O ye men of little faith’
Bring unto me you
Your soul
For the fire
Purification in rendition…
Wake up!

THE VISION

I arrived late
Distorted by reasons best known to me
Then came my ticket;
A lifeless file about a people
A region,
In union to make life real

He came forward,
Took me by the hand…
Showed me possibilities
Showed me realities
Gave me a long rope for suicide
Made me a meal of serpent for lunch

Hugged my body,
Although greasy from oil exploitation,
I gave in,
Gave him a kiss,
That same given by Judas
Shortly they came, took ‘God’
Made him a home in the Delta
Gave me the bone of stones
On it,
I wrote:
My commandments…
Thou shall not live
Thou shall neither die
Thou shall all reapThe beauty of a sinner!

bEAUTIFUL

The world has stopped
Movement in recruitment
Services have been rendered
But as light flashes…
Your face, I see
Your breathe I grasp
The aura of your presence I capture…
Tonight,
You’re so beautiful…

As your baby,
May I,
Climb to your back
Hold on to that perfectly made seat of defeat
Rest my head on your fresh braced breast
Touch your eyes; make you hear my thoughts in your heart?
This night,
You look so beautiful…

I hold responsible them goddess
They let you to earth
Made you come to me

Your steps
So gentle
Hips, so fainting
Body so greasy,
Seems like my mentor…Mona Lisa
Come, see her
A pearl.

Would you tell me a story…
Take me to Bori…
Send me a rose…
Dream for me when I’m out?
I love you…but angel,
This tender skin of yours
This passion filled thigh of yours
Someone has it…

I saw him pounding
My fears, those tears…I weep
“Lord, take this cup away from me’’
She’s evil…
Like the meadow

Wished you never came by.

MEMORIES

They hurt,
They cut across lands
Seasons
Dreams and memories

They make a brother bow
They make me ask how
The land we knew got plowed
By fowl hands with the plough

‘This world is ours to plough not to plunder’
Ours to breed not kill
This world is ours to pray
For us, the preys
This land is full of memories of dim lights
Shy emotions
Curl minds
Flimsy instincts
This world is ours to remember not forget
Ours to survival in pains
Ours to smile even at death
Ours to give up goals to those
Whose inhibition is abortion?

My memories are cold
It freezes the man that attempts
It comes like the tempest on a lowly noon
Swift in mind’s blindness
Children to adults
Mean men to walnuts,
Memories…

Nine months in sojourn
Hunger played me friendship
Asunder bade me welcome
In his veranda I knelt
In stories that have refused arrival
Under the moon-shed-tears of flares of gas
I fasted,
‘Lord, we are human, make life meaningful’.

The land is ill and pregnant
Fine smell of skunk paces in revolution
Corridors of passive good, rules
‘I am memory’
No money,
Let me be sold
For a pence
For these memories marry me till death in Ogoni

IF I WERE BORN BLACK ...AGAIN

On a crispy mat I would lay
Face, up to the heavens, discouraged.

Speaking to the creator for Earth:
Birth and death I’ve seen to share
Bare me in sheer -altar as bait.
In days, I would walk, talk and mock
Walk like a slave made free
Talk like a dumb made whole
Mock like a maid grown old
Freely bound by a world in parts;
Life and death.
In the outer part of the world, I would pee
Freely, as freedom, my joy, will flee

If I were born black …again
I’ll gain stripe like the zebra
Beaten to a dust-man in slavery
Liberal like as a sailor, lost,
Use pun as fun like a black baby.

In a state of loneliness I’ll plan a coup
Group African leaders as babies
Call on afro-centric teachers to make learning:
Meekness is kindness,
Leadership is worship
Praise for motherland found
In sand trampled by wimpished-seeds
Gripped in leaped-faith

If I were born black …again
Again, the rainbow will climb low
Above the ark of blacks,
Colour the day with lights
Dwell amongst men of feeble faith
And wear the gown of blunt face disgraced.

If I were born black …again,
I would write with my left, cleft Saves
Pave ways as I watch life sway
On papers, my sins I’ll re-write.

WORLD ANGER DAY (W.A.D)

Yes! Please fight
Kill, shed blood(s)
Drink with the skulls
Slain with swords
Curse with your words
Today,
This day
Our natures are tense
Anger now slanders
Like a lad at vanguard
Sorcerers, your spokes
Point and destroy
This circus
Human’s caucus

Hold me
Pull me from behind
Make your finger pierce my buttocks
Life sucks
Love’s cursed
Children are in raid
We are on rampage!
The delta is ugly
Grotesque is our future
Moet is their leisure
Aha! See, we are angry
Wondering,
Is God man?
Or man God?
Cus our pains are painted by neither for either

Today is heavy
My hunch aches
My lunch is taken
Who hears?
Who fears?
I have my mind
Have you, yours?
Have we, faith?
Today, we strive… we March, we fight
Our meaning will come forth
Today, anger is embraced
We shall make siblings inherit
Make cousins victims
Set the world ablaze

We are angry!

LEARNING SPEECHES

Say ‘ah’! And I would repeat
Say ‘mama’
And I would sing along
Say ‘I love you’
And I would be quiet

Say ‘this world’
And I would say much
Say ‘suffering’ and I would cry aloud
I would tell the world
That I’m only learning languages
Not ‘more wages’

I have died and lived
I may still die and live
I want more of those beliefs
Those clichés of loving to living
Those display on your mind pages
I would eat them and make them know
That I’m only learning speeches not preaching

This land is empty,
Our drums are clean,
I am hungry
May you teach me?
Speeches,
Just to lie and I say I know,
We are all liars?

COME LISTEN

The door is open,
Come right through it
Make yourself a home
In my dome

Spread your arms
Far and wide
Make your sounds
Known to mine
Cus I’m moaning too
Coming to you for a listening

Come,
Please come, listen
To your heartbeat in my heart
Listen to these voices in my head
They seem familiar?
Their giggles,
Like that of our future children?

Come, come dance
To this tune
This rhythm
This self-created rhythm
That calls us home
To Africa
Where we belong

Come eat at home,
Come sink in my care
Come play the horn of songs
Let’s listen like Christians… to a sermon

Come listen to my stories,
My African princess!

MOCKINGBIRD

They said this Earth
Has in it, curative powers
That our pains from world-before
Would have rest
And our tears would tear out
So lights, we would see
But blind, I am.

I am the bird,
I sing our pains
I bear our burdens
Crop our crushed bones
Play them to be heard,

I wave my hands to find a stand
To speak to them,
To teach in time
That earth has in it, Wrongs
For her faithful dwellers

They said all sinners, are we
Fallen short of His glory:
Calling down forgiveness
With our blood(s)

Be blotted out
And be taken aback, this life

I am your mockingbird
Sitting in this cage of flames
Eating my flesh for relish
I’ll perish, I presume
Earth, my mother
What I was told isn’t what I’ve seen
What I’ve seen saw me first.

Should I live or live-out
Should I bleat or speak-out
In love, I leave you…as a mother
To her mockingbird