Once upon a time in Nigeria
Lived a storyteller with a voice like the wind
His parables, like whispers, traveled far and wide
Touching every corner, stirring every mind.
He wrote of a land where the yam was king
Where the ancestors’ drums forever sing.
He told of Okonkwo, fierce and proud
In a village where voices rose clear and loud.
With Things Fall Apart, he tore down the veil
Unveiling truths buried deep in each tale.
He spoke of clashes, of struggle, and pain
Cultures colliding like thunder and rain.
Once upon a time in Nigeria, lived a man
Who awoke a continent, once tightly bound.
Through the pages of history, his voice ascends
A river of stories that flows without end.
Who am I?
I am a lion who comes out as a goat
I am an ocean with waves big enough to drown
I am a child of Mesopotamia
A descendant of Shaka Zulu
Baptized in the Nile
I depict the sword of Mansa Musa
I am the backbone of civilization
An icon of emancipation
I represent the pyramid of Giza
And the lighthouse of Alexandria
A symbol of hope
And an emblem of freedom
I am a depiction of Chinua Achebe ink
An illustration of the hieroglyphic
I am the carapace of Hannibal
And the shield of Tunka Manin
I am a player of the djembe
And the author of Sundiata Epic
I am an inheritor of Timbuktu
A citizen of Kumbi-Saleh
A compadre to Askia Muhammed
And a son of Mansa Musa
A follower of Kwame Nkrumah
And a kinsman of Ahmet Sekou Toure
I am the native son of Gao
A fisherman of Lake Victoria
A Tuareg from the Sahara
I hailed from the cradle of life
I am the black in Panther
And this is really who I am, A black man.
With wealth and blessings overflowing
Non would project this time we behold
To prove to humanity the lesson of life
Nothing stays unless true effort is made
The fourth is falling before the eyes of all
Reversing the theory of consolidation
A growth grounded in falsehood is a lie
The truth only can truly sustain any
Achebe saw it all before departing flesh
The Country stopped being as we looked
Like the carcass unbundled by termites
The country extinguished self willfully
Where the rules were thrown to dogs
Living like existence is National joke
Minds drifting according to how directed
As some swore to balkanize the Nation
Consequences of action and inactions
Where impure purposes rule decisions
The essence of being becomes eroded
Until the fabrics break to show the rot
It is gone like all can see
The pot has burst clearly
The feared has finally come
All are in confusion for next
The end has come
No prophets needed
The past has caught up
We are all part and in it
Death and birth sustain creation
A new Nigeria is a desired option
Where truth will lay the foundation
After cleansing that goes with ending
MY WEDDING DAY
On my wedding day
I wore a pink suit
A white cuff links
With a black long sleeve.
I and my wife
Walked down the aisle
With hands held tight
And faces dazzling.
The rose flowers
The silvery crown
The sandhog shoe
All with effect blazing.
To Christopher Okigbo
To Chinua Achebe
To Wole Soyinka
To JP Clarks
To Habila Helon
A measure of time past
I am part of your dark side
To this wayward side of this wet Benue roads, children had learnt to be naked leaving their thoughts hang in the air,
Famished.
Cattle and herdmen
Death and people
The watermarks upon our woes.
Before the moon belched
And the wind sneezed loudly
After the sun unmasked the empty roads
The wetness of those roads split our innocence journeying from Enugu to kogi, and cattle, the roads companions;
retracing images of forgotten land.
Wounded dust groans
Grasses quake in communal voices
Journey testes like a sour chicken,
Like a village defeated by war,
Like a burning passion of hatred.
Those wet roads are the cause of our hunger Games and no politicians seen crying as the children are dying!
Forgetting the food basket of the land
Is forgetting our tomorrow in the hands of hunger!
Yours poetically,
©John Chizoba Vincent.
I have hope in Africa
That this rain will stop
When the drums are sounded
and every woman remember home
and boys take up farming as a career.
Then Okonkwo will return to Africa
Home won't be like Animal Farm
Where the leaders rule heartlessly
Inu Ego won't suffer again in her next world
We shall see Kainene in Abba forest.
Chinua Achebe will sit and smile
Wole Soyinka will speak less in fury
Chimamanda will return home from abroad
And Nkrumah will rejoice where ever he is
This is our hope tabled under the sun.
Then Africa shall arise in good fate
then Africa shall sing a melodious song
then Africa shall wear smile like clothes
I will know you and you will know me
Nothing shall bother our sky to doom.
May we always remember our home
May we always write good of her
May we not be hidden in tinted glasses
May we always have this hope for life
For Africa shall stand when we stood.
©John Chizoba Vincent
If only they had listened
Things would not have get out of hands
as it is now but they were selfish
Wanting so much for themselves
The masses are left behind.
If only they had listened to the
Voice of Chinue Achebe We could have
Been smiling now.
If only they had listened to the voice
Of Gani Fawehinm, all the boors could
Have rot in the Jail
Freedom would be restore in our father land.
If only they had listened to cry of
Ben Okri When he write melodiously for peace
Nigeria could have been a better place.
If only they could think and reason just like Wole Soyinka
The sky won't be our limit
Rather We climb and fly higher than the eagle
With wings so large and beautifully made
From above for us all.
if only they had followed the footsteps of Nelson Mandela
We would be free from sickness and hunger
Which had circulated in the air through their feces.
If only they had listened to Sir Ken saro,
The black oil would have been for the beggars
The south south would not be damaged by oil.
If only they had hope and dream of a better
Nigeria they could have achieved it.
If only they had, if only they had listened
Nigeria could have been a home for all.
(This poem is dedicated to the late Nobel Laureate Chinua Achebe.
Your works will always stir our thoughts with reason and entertainment. R.I.P)
A Tree Fell
A very mighty tree fell,
its falling becoming audible
across Mama Africa;everyone
in Africa is mourning its fall
The branches that supported
the nests brooding African
identity are on the ground....
Since time cannot be reversed
to make the tree to pierce
the clouds once more,
another tree will have to stand
in its place
To find the tree, we have to water
our seedlings with knowledge
and inspiration
Our minds, the seedlings,
determine the time a future
incarnate of the fallen tree
will arise in its place;
piercing through the clouds
of ordinary imaginations, to the skies
of limitless and flawless imaginations
By: Teddy Kimathi
Date of Publication: 06/14/2014
Contest Name: Any Poem That Received Honorable Mention
Contest Sponsor: Broken Wings
THE HAND THAT MINDS THE AUTHOR
( for Christie Achebe)
The hand that minds the author
What is life like rivalling words?
When you decked your bed with persian sheet
And stuffed your pillow with the autopedics
When you perfumed your room with arabian scent
And wore your pyjamas to thrill and kill
In books he shrouded himself
Romancing words like butterfly roses
Hours on your feet you stood
Tampered butter,tampered flour
Gazing clock,gazing oven;
Icing sugar and fondant craft
You perfected, though fluffy,
His appetite was for words
When he woke you up from slumber
Asking for neither food nor peck
But only to appraise his newest bride:
''How do you see this Christie?''
Often you yielded:''words are paints
With which your rainbow is made.''
Your fortitude is commendable:
24/7 in libraries
Visiting schools,visiting books
Pruning students, pruning teachers;
But when Christie,when did your
Hearthrob come to you?
The gods have eaten your cake
But we still have it
Some with dirty hands
Stalking your pages
And others virgin hands
Talking your pages
With seething hope
Above you a shrine, a wreath of letters.
The father of stories
Where children never sleep
The auditorium where curtains never fall
The age mate of gems
The gods have eaten your cake
But we still have it
Things fall apart
And center can not hold
Inevitable pistol must
have hit him
Thereby makes his
dialectic arms to fold
No healthier life wish to die
Yes we all shall swallow death
This world accepts us as traders
We must return home through our death.
Stolen by wit and historian's library
Moved by words and all his beautiful paint
Of world, war, society and its rule
As though he knows when he will seize to faint.
There is less trouble of this world when dies
Let who seeks lasting star hear.
Way to fruitful life is widely narrow
So let who seeks it all stays clear.
Dedicated to Nigeria
Literary Icon:
Prof. Chinua Achebe,
who died on 21st March,
2013.
The Iroko has transmuted
Chinua Achebe
Unending teacher
MIRACLE ON EARTH.
Salute to the lords that formed
Our land
Tribute to the angles unseen
During the day,
Few where born to be great
Different sand was used to create,
On my wooden slate,
I try to meditate
Soyinka suddenly appears on
This page
Do you notice Baba's black and
White gray?
With his tentacles in shining
frames.
Am still in shock Soyinka hasn't
Been ordained,
The god's of words and human
Metaphysical brain
Will always favor few names,
You should have heard of the
Great Achebe?
Kindly read few lines of J.P Clark's
STREAMSIDE EXCHANGE,
Poetry that makes kings reminisce
You can only translate if you
Read again and again.
Miracle trained to make little
Mistakes,
I pray thee ink shall never sleep,
Seeing who sees the unseen,
Heard you predict battle victory,
I see in you a shining evening,
My father of golden reasoning.
Habib Akewusola.
(for: chinua achebe)
Part One
With gaiety and some pump
Forerunners, trumpeters
And the Gala came to us –
Varied voices, many eyes on faces
Swift to see the lapis lazuli
Nature’s gift to a forest:
(Teachers and teachees,
Authors, farmers and traders,
They came with songs;
Scholars and scholees,
Misters, mistresses and villagers,
They came with songs;
Lecturers and lecturees,
Drummers, dancers and clan-leaders,
They came with songs;
Professors and professees,
Pro-chancellors, chancellors and chair-holders,
They came with songs;
Governors and governees,
Business giants, dwarfs and hawkers,
They also came with songs!)
(for Chinua Achebe)
Any who lives in time’s documents
Must with feet have graced the tunes
Of drums my verse clan drummed
Which every soul in highest frenzy trapped.
When the eyes of noble history
Shall ope’ to the unborn who like sentry
Wait for the cock to crow the herald:
Jungle readiness for new generation added;
Then we are the ancients and ancestors
Drawn from the once famous fallen
Generation – then as myths
Heard by the ever-hearing ears
Our tunes mezzotinted shall be heard
Even in this cosmo-jungle clearly heard.
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