I hear your call! I hear it far away; I hear it break the circle of these crouching hills.
I want to view your face again and feel your cold embrace; or at your brim to set myself and inhale your breath; or like the trees, to watch my mirrored self unfold and span my days with song from the lips of dawn. I hear your lapping call! I hear it coming through; invoking the ghost of a child listening, where river birds hail your silver-surfaced flow.
My river’s calling too! Its ceaseless flow impels my found’ring canoe down its inevitable course. And each dying year brings near the sea-bird call, the final call that stills the crested waves and breaks in two the curtain of silence of my upturned canoe. O incomprehensible God! Shall my pilot be my inborn stars to that final call to Thee. O my river’s complex course?
I see again and again in my eyes the smile flit over your cheekbones Reach like a tendril to caress your face in those lean days that startled do you rejoice that life does not slaughter our dreams our secret thoughts on its butcher bench of time that we gather to ourselves the scraps and bones our dismembered being hoard to nurse them that death may not out-stare us?
Before she pressed her wild dusky eyes the heightened sliced dust inside got out stroked her brows unadorned, unarmed naked face stripped to living ecstasy, her wisdoms open again and again wakening and awakening, penetrating the ears like gentle very fresh, cool sea water before she hugged the light of the unreal displayed like a freshly sharpened knife, piercing, loud truly, then the deep like a blade tore open her eyes, wild, yawning monsters: came out, raw, below hell, from the cluttered further down debility of the decay the first time, replanting her eyes she saw a little ornament between her limbs, ripening here the gentle unblemished shelter sat fresh faraway, deep at the open, new and green folding back her quiet door, wakes the relaxed tree, sparkling with eternal warmth passing on worlds, Passing on worlds on the world where worlds breathe not perishing self, not worldly worth not dry leaves, painted with mud Low down Unbending, engendered soundless berry flood with fog.
We present this work in honor of the 205th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Usman dan Fodio Nigerian 1754 – 1817
Leave us alone with recalling what Father used to do… Leave us alone with relying on what Is practised in the east; These are grounds for those who Stayed astray from Sunnah Leave us with the idea that it is Practised at Medina Both Mecca and Medina are inferior to the Sunnah.
We are the miracles that God made To taste the bitter fruit of Time. We are precious. And one day our suffering Will turn into the wonders of the earth.
There are things that burn me now Which turn golden when I am happy. Do you see the mystery of our pain? That we bear poverty And are able to sing and dream sweet things
And that we never curse the air when it is warm Or the fruit when it tastes so good Or the lights that bounce gently on the waters? We bless things even in our pain. We bless them in silence.
That is why our music is so sweet. It makes the air remember. There are secret miracles at work That only Time will bring forth. I too have heard the dead singing.
And they tell me that This life is good They tell me to live it gently With fire, and always with hope. There is wonder here
And there is surprise In everything the unseen moves. The ocean is full of songs. The sky is not an enemy. Destiny is our friend.
How I wish I could pigeon-hole myself and neatly fix a label on! But self-knowledge comes too late And by the time I’ve known myself I am no longer what I was.
I knew a woman once who had a delinquent child. She never had a moment’s peace of mind waiting in constant fear, listening for the dreaded knock and the cold tones of policeman: “Madam, you’re wanted at the station” I don’t know if the knock ever came but she feared on right till we moved away from the street. She used to say “It’s the uncertainty that worries me – if only I knew for certain…”
If I only knew for certain What my delinquent self would do… But I never know until the deed is done And I live on fearing, wondering which part of me will be supreme – the old and tested one, the present or the future unknown. Sometimes all three have equal power and then how I long for a pigeon-hole.
And the horn may now paw the air howling goodbye… For the Eagles are now in sight: Shadows in the horizon— The robbers are here in black sudden steps of showers, of caterpillars— The eagles have come again, The eagles rain down on us— Politicians are back in giant hidden steps of howitzers, of detonators— The eagles descend on us, Bayonets and cannons— The robbers descend on us to strip us of our laughter, of our thunder— The eagles have chosen their game, Taken our concubines— Politicians are here in this iron dance of mortars, of generators—
The eagles are suddenly there, New stars of iron dawn; So let the horn paw the air howling goodbye… O mother mother Earth, unbind me; let this be my last testament; let this be The ram’s hidden wish to the sword the sword’s secret prayer to the scabbard—
The robbers are back in black hidden steps of detonators— For beyond the blare of sirened afternoons, beyond the motorcades; Beyond the voices and days, the echoing highways; beyond the latescence Of our dissonant airs; through our curtained eyeballs, through our shuttered sleep, Onto our forgotten selves, onto our broken images; beyond the barricades Commandments and edicts, beyond the iron tables, beyond the elephant’s Legendary patience, beyond his inviolable bronze bust; beyond our crumbling towers— Beyond the iron path careering along the same beaten track— The glimpse of a dream lies smouldering in a cave, together with the mortally wounded birds. Earth, unbind me; let me be the prodigal; let this be the ram’s ultimate prayer to the tether…
An old star departs, leaves us here on the shore Gazing heavenward for a new star approaching; The new star appears, foreshadows its going Before a going and coming that goes on forever…
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 70th birthday.
Catherine Obianuju Acholonu Nigerian 1951 – 2013
I
Our hands grope in vain the springs have dried up leaving us with salt water and we remember the days when the hooting of the owl sanctified our mortality
we stand paralyzed like skeletons mounted on the sandy soil struggling against the dry wind blowing sand into our eyes which have since ceased to see
footprints of blessed ages past deeply backed on to the soil show the way to the horizon and beyond but we cannot reach it you and I
our kisses bite like grains of sand in the eye then our bodies touch like two scaly fish we stand paralyzed like two accursed.
II
We plunge ourselves into the abyss mindless of the outcome our blind eyes surveying the darkness and in the labyrinths we grope and sniff for signs of our brothers in the catacombs at the gate we present our printed tickets decaying lips toothless gums cracking laughter
shameless folk that seek entrance into the land of their fathers you cannot partake of the coummunion without you ofo without your chi
and we are back at the cross-roads dreading once more to cross the horizon having she our outer shell.
III
Contact telegraphic our sons speak a foreign language devoid of feeling devoid of meaning
what choice have we but to take refuge in obganje passing excrement into the mouths of our daughters our ever mourning mothers
home again and yet homeless a dreary failure for a nameless folk.
Poets Corner 