Best Cowries Poems
It was not so
It was not so
Before the invasion of the vultures
In those days
When being black makes us thick
When our communion whispers across oceans
When our ties thrust distrust
When our dreams were dreams
When our groans frighten their gods
When our cowries outweigh their currencies
But now,
The invasion of the vultures
Mocked our mores
Crucified our tradition with their crusades
Barter our black gem for arms
Conscript our angels into prostitution
Littering our minds with the doctrines of servitude
It was not so
With their holy writ they stabbed us
It was not so
Before the invasion of the Vultures.
awoh kingsley awoh
MY DREADLOCKS LOVER
Your dreadlocks flutters like streamers
Your thick dreadlocks spreads like tethers
Your eyes are like coffee mix with white lily
My lover,
I come from a beautiful place
Where they believe dread is a taboo
Pronouncing the word Da-da is a grievous sin
Where you are told what to believe
And even hate what you believe
In between my Momma's damnation, my Poppa's bellicose, and my usual rebuttal of indifference
All began because of you.
I am told to stop loving you
I am told you are a lie
I am told you are an illusion
I am told that contemporary history books may forget my name
Because of you.
I was told that Spartan Hoplites wore a formal locks but you don't
Why?
Are all dreads dreadful?
Dreads are not dreadful,is it?
I love every strand of your dread
Marley's midnight ravers resonates my love for you
You are the worst thing that has happened to me
I blame my soul for being a courier to the wind
I won't allow religion to destroy our love
All my sins,
All my memories,
All my ideas,
My love for art,
I'll tie into your dreadlocks like a scrapbook
I'll hold all very close to my heart with a marked cowries for every event
Dreads are for legends!
Dreads are myths!
Dreads are locks to our soul.
STANDING ALL ALONE
THINKING NON BUT ALL
NATURE AND DESTINY AT
ITS BEST
AT WAR BUT WHO WINS
GRIEVE NOT WOMAN
GRIEVE NOT
FOR IS THERE A REASON TO
NO SEED CAN EVER SURVIVE
IN THIS LAND
WHICH YOU’VE NURTURED
PLOUGHED AND TILTED FOR
MANY YEARS
YET NO FRUIT HAS IT EVER
BORE
STOP DREAMING THEN
STOP DREAMING
LOOK HOW YOU LIE SOUR
WITH MILK
YOUR PRIDE OF WOMANHOOD
HAS GIVEN YOU NO PRIZE
SEEDLINGS WOULD YOU
NEVER TRIM NOR PRUN
FOR MOTHER YOU WOULD
NEVER BE CALLED
WHY LET THIS EMPTINESS
RUIN YOU
AND INFERTILITY HOOT YOU
WHILE YOU SIT AND SING
THIS SONG OF MYSTERY AND
MISERY
THOUGH YOUR CALABASH IS
BROKEN
AND YOUR BAMBOO FALLEN
STAND UP AND DANCE IN
AGONY HAPPILY
FOR LIFE ITSELF IS A MIRAGE
THE MORE YOU LOOK THE LESS
YOU SEE
THEN TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTH
OF SACK
AND WEAR YOUR GOWN OF
RAFFIA AND COWRIES MADE
SHAKE TO THE TUNE
THAT LIFE PLAYS FOR YOU
COS’ ONE DAY IT WOULD ALL
END
WHEN ALL THE DRUMS WEARS
AND TEARS
AND NATURE WITH DESTINY
ALL LOSE THE GAME
Aje the oceanic,
Aje the inexhaustible,
Queen that sings in the depth,
Who is clad in millions beads,
Who adorns her head with white-bead-crown.
Aje the bud in the merchant shed;
I know your shed, your shed is in the shade.
You that sit on the vault in cosmos
And allot cowries as pleased.
You are the treasure, You are the treasurer.
A god that says you are unworthy of his praise
Shall wipe his running nose with his shoulders,
Shall whistle in his fist in dungeon and gallows,
Shall yawn in dream, shall starve in life.
Yam is at home the queen of riches will not eat,
Grain is at home the goddess of wealth will not eat;
It is baby banana that I saw you eat in Otuufe,
It is white pigeon that you were caressing with your hands.
I have baby babana in my house Aje come and dine with me;
I have white pigeon in my house please visit me now.
12/11/15.
Christmas Rebels
It was about a weak
After that night walk
The unknown dangers,
Made known, turned me weak,
I was managing myself,
After my heart was pulled,
From where it sank,
I was yet in the oven,
Of my haven,
To dry up the coldness,
And the wetness,
Of that fearful night loneliness,
Today is Christmas,
The whole mass,
Was joyous,
Every home, glorious,
Meat was plenteous,
Rice and beans.
Was every homes means,
Children bouncing in,
New goat skin jackets,
Mother’s dressed in costly
Beads and all the way,
Father leads.
For Christmas had taking over,
Taking over the African Shrine,
It supplied a joyous sunshine.
Our pockets were full of cowries,
Like a goldmine,
Happiness was mine,
For the usual war seemed
To be hidden, and our teethes where like,
“Forever opened”.
Oh! Joyful, blissful, plentiful Christmas.
Providing joy each time it surface,
But joy has a slender waist that breaks so soon.
Christmas night came, so we visited
Our beds as night rang it’s bell,
(To be continued in the next, same Poem).
------------------------------------------------
Have I not told you that what you mistake
for madness is but the overacuteness of the senses?
- Edgar Allen Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart
------------------------------------------------
I have seen men forget to Look at themselves
And ponder on their souls and their hearts:
There they sit and smirk and giggle
At the frailties of fellow man
And at the fallibility of another.
Through misty dawn till dusk
Their lips move with stealth
Defaming and cursing at ease
Playing with the Cello of Death.
"He is insane, you can wager on that,"
"A bastard, he thinks like a swine,"
"He is spiritually dead, sold for cowries,"
Atrocious words from evil tongues.
A poet like me has been so addressed
Since my thoughts and ways are irrational:
The artist from Plato's time to present
Has lived under despicable sight.
Artists are strange people
In art they have found themselves;
In art they have found truth, happiness-
So, why call them mad? Why call them mad?
The persecutors burn with evil and delight,
And they are of the perfece breed, they think-
The best corn in the stack, hear them sing
The artist's head wedged beneath their legs.
written- 18th Feb. 2014
3:50 PM
Bring the Nzu and
Kola nut
Take it to the
stranger among us,
Let him kiss it and
be bless.
Let him rub the Nzu
on his arms then his
fore head.
It is our tradition
here not to neglect
A humble stranger in
our land.
We kiss suffering on
the lips, it harm us
not.
We measure our joy
with dance and
laughter.
pour the oil in the
calabash
Roast the yam and
break the kolanut,
Let the youngest
among us break and
share it.
Pour the dry gin on
the ground and bless
the gods
Our forefathers must
drink before we
taste ours
Angry will they be
if they taste not
the gin.
It is our tradition
here in Nkporoland.
The maiden must not
touch the raging
masquerade
Keep them afar off
from the here, let
them smell not of
it.
All the young men
must be present at
the Iza Afa festival
and then the young
women must not be
excluded from the
Igboto Nma festival
in the village
square.
When is the
initiation into the
masks spirit taken
place?
Warn all the young
men to partake, it
is our tradition
Never allow the she
goat deliver in
pain,
Go call the elders
to look after its
delivering.
The snake must never
be in group like the
beads
It is an abomination
not among the
tradition.
Gather the cowries
and the white chalk
and assemble the
youth in the shrine
Lets pour the goat
blood for the
sacrifices
The gos will hear us
this time after
We went astray from
it in foolishness.
Call on the widow
among us, i heard
there was one.
Her hair must be
Barbe thoroughly
She must bath and
drink the water used
on
Her deceased husband
bath.
The Umu Ada must be
there
It is the tradition
here.
Let the Umu Ada
check the maidens
Of their virginity
before they dance
Let them deep their
hands into the hole
One after the other
to check the fruits.
It is part of the
traditions.
The king must not
set his eyes on a
rotten
Shining meals which
are set for the
vultures.
Let not a child
whistles in the day
Let not a girl child
come out to the
Agbala naked
Under the initiation
in festival of
virginity.
We all must set the
tradition going
It is our right and
liberty to excel.
Neglect not the
wisdom of the elders
In his wisdom exist
pure and holy.
Our fore fathers
must be happy and
free
when we all observe
the traditions
Of Nkporoland in its
pure heart.
The Golden Stool
Offer me the sacrosanct golden stool
To rest my bottom,
Cursed! And of course abominable it is
The Asantihene possesses it,
I will rather then be banish from being;
And become a bottomless bottoms
A riddle riddled with contour,
It is uncomfortable anyway,
I will rather seat on an armchair
Listening to the howling wind from Elmina;
Telling stormy tales of the beginning,
Of million sunk soul ancestors departed;
In ocean-farer Columbus minute sail,
Neither I examine buttocks of Homo- erectus
With magnifying glasses,
Nor listen to naked maidens cuddling calabash;
Filled with soft breadfruits
Strolling on marble tarmac roads,
But to virgins with unripe chest mangoes;
Dancing and queuing at my hut stepping,
Listen to mothers mingling backed urchins
Hoping in hope load of sacks;
In uncountable mileage
To dispose and bring back joy of cowries;
Labouring farmer hue mounds in hectares,
Rose in a grunt
Nostalgically, looked hazily back and future;
I must do a little bit more, more and more,
Mounds, until I reach tip end of the earth;
The hunegred yawns must be fill.
The lustrous surface of your sea is
urging me to drown in its intriguing blue.
Afraid to go further, I stand hesitantly at
your mysterious shore, yet allowing your
tides to lick my soul!
Your waves grow in me rapidly,
clogging the flow of my breathing!
I hark keenly to the whispers of the cowries
wishing to unfold the secrets of your
inapproachable depths!
In my dreams, I invade that misty
portion of you, dismember it into
crystal clear droplets which
permit me to see through the secretive
fabric of you, to transfigure fractioned
doubts into certainties…
Your heart, edged in mysterious sweetness
becomes the center of gravity,
drawing the straying grains of my
Being into its infinite grip …
And I so wrapped up in this ageless
shawl of sadness find a refuge in this
turmoil of tussling
emotions to elude a devious stillness..
The country is so filthy with garbage all over the dearest homes People are sick with unpleasant smell and poor sanitations, poor managements. In such country that claiming to have functional government to the gravel of my thought, pin the pain to pink appointment in the morning to monster cowries to swing of crabs.
Fed up witnessing innocent souls departing from us seeking another world with totally different environment, where your face cooler to the duty of your fingers to the fan of the grave. You suppose to stay here to helm it people, then you left us in innumerable thoughts, the garment hem are the only thing picturing in my imagination.
He cannot stop the pain of death panging the back to the battle field, the flies force the citizens to leave the city and seek another continent of no communication between people. People only stopped slapping their faces when they are in beds; the country is stinking like rot eggs middle summer while the heartless man exploiting our resources to rusticating and resuscitating his family overnight.
Keeping us captives in our mother’s wombs, well they are living in luxurious lives styles and pushing the best cars in town, the layman is down there with curled hair sweating to make end meets. He cannot fill his belly with a single dietary; they blow their noise on us whole day with their cars beeping all days long.
Cursing us with exhaust pipes poisoning our lungs, the city is candles city there are no infrastructures because they have built fences of tribalism which keep us apart. The poor have no alternatives except to flee the city, because they no longer welcomed to integrate with the elites.
The country is littering with rubbish, sick is everywhere; people are dying from treatable diseases. The country is bust up with tribalism, sectionalism and nepotism. The citizens are seeing impotent government steering the wheel of the state like the moment of a statue and there are lots of frustration among the youths and the elderly.
The country has contaminated with toxic acid of tribalism, politics has eaten in our hearts establishing hared among cemented thought and mechanical breakdown.
We are all from an Osucaste,
those prepared for the gods of the land but rejected by the sun.
The sand we march on are our brothers and sisters, who were discriminated too.
They died a shameful death leaving their shadows behind,
Leaving their spirits wailing at every dustbins that modernity brought.
Leaving an awful images behind doors;
Leaving their emotions on the bodies of the sky to hunt and hurt us.
The noise named us into death and we smell silence through noise of death,
Discrimination tamed us and we tamed the firmament of the smoke that chase us.
You can see the ghost of my fathers in that smoke going up there,
You can retrieve the bleeding tears of my mother from the wind,
You can see the broken words of my sisters on the palms of the stars;
You can still see my brothers' virgin fears hang on the cloud,
They died through this course, Osu!
We will gather this cowries of Osucaste in Igboland.
Part ways for the fierce spirit of ogbanje for the punishment of this culture.
Obi Okwonkwo and Clara will marry,
and Achebe's spirit will be at ease again.
We'll survive through the skin of the moon,
We'll survive through this ringing tone
of civilization.
They made us learn to trade life for death when life becomes a threat.
We'll find ourselves coming back when we die at will with their torture.
We'll swing swords and missiles in the name of survival,
We can't marry others, we can't love others, we can't speak to others, what life is it without a human relationship?
Our lives are bags of black colours,
Our images smell horribly to them,
Suffering from what we don't know,
We have placed our plates upon the face of morning;
We have removed all our tears from the belly of the night,
Hoping that this will end when the earth and the mars cross path and we become the survivals.
Yours Poetically,
©John Chizoba Vincent
summer dawn –
the path of cowries
beyond the sea
summer dream
counting the butterflies
in neighbor’s garden
piercing the
breeze, my chute lifts –
summer beach
summer twilight . . .
the bee eater stirring
tall grass
summer sunset –
changing colour of
rising waves
summer's end . . .
the waterfall thunders into
my laughter
last day of summer
bouncing, the pool ball
of her eyes
summer ends
the wallah takes down
the raincoat array
"Super credence...!"
Coming from the west,
Known by many;very popular and people's figure,
Qualified with soft speech,modified with prominent smile,
Dressed with simplicity,but very focal,
The complexion is matched to brilliance,
Lifted up in air was the nose;catching public attention,
Perfumed with premium lavender diffused from the skin into clothing,
"Preemptively ushered",someone said,
Fashioned with tanned pelt around the bust,...kente from the waist,covering to the knees,
Beads and cowries all over the neck,...as well as ears,arms and feets,
Head covered with scuff,
Carrying a pot of water,
Traditionally attributed to firmness and greatness,
Moulded with superintendent qualities;staunch and wisely modulated,
Possess melodious voice;Seductively enriched,
A marital object for procreation and generational changing,
Talented to dance,subbed to singing,
Colourful in appearance,
Useful creature among equals,
Warrior for true love,...even though life is full of irony,
Taste her food,and come for more,
Culturally valued and highlighted,
"Where does she come from?",
Goddesses over waters applauds her magnificence,
Monumentally, she is the mother of world actors and heroines,
Spreader of democracy and patience;Incomparably agitated,
"Tell me...who's this proficient person?",
That is the legend of years;an indigenous superstar,
Proudly known as,"MAMA AFRICA",
"The jewelry everyone is digging for".
This is Ogori-Magongo,
a land of many hills
towering high
above houses and
farmlands
scattered about
like cowries cast
on a diviner's tray.
Ogori-Magongo,the land
where gunshots herald
moments of merriment
with well-wishers
dinning till tummies
threaten to burst,
and wining
till senses go to sleep.
Ogori-Magongo,
a stream from where
emerge
many intellectual hippos
whose steps quake the
earth.
N.B. Ogori-Magongo is a
community in Kogi state of
Nigeria.
Heading to a cauldron in the dry sea of sands
Far afield the Sahara shores devoid of life
With an array of dexterous army riding further North
Our horses neighs as honed swords beholds Amir al-Mu'mini's hands
Death on battlefield is an honourary worth
Even the treasures of war fuels this sweet strife
To bring back silvers, gold, and pleasuring flesh
As a "Missing-Captured" for my already bloated chambers
And the crown will yield more cowries if Allah blesses
The throne, to rax few shells to the proselytes or sheik in the madrasas
Who barely tattles my fate but extols me greatly
The fogged dust on our tarsals censored vision in the brown mist
And the day mocked our sights
Yet we fought with fallen numbers till the sun left the east
To the west with blunt swords clanging defeat
While the crescent moon and rayed star decked the night
Our feral horses snorted as the numbers of our enemies diminishes
From thousands to hundreds and then tens till they are no more
Then rode us to the oasis under the night's eyes
The wind sang victorious song for us while we quench our thirst
Even when water taste like sand as we drink there was plenty to pour
In our jars for the next few day's ablution
~
Our flintlock muskets hug straight at our back
As we rode our horses with our prisoners of war
Tied with our turbans to a caravan camel
Along with ostriches, ivories, kolanuts and salts
To a waiting parade while my horsemen brandished their swords
It excited the maidens who peeped under a parasol
Their breast dangles like ripe mangos in a tree.
My father rode to me with his horsemen chanting the greatness of God
He was Clad in an ostrich's feather in his turban
He embraced me and the trumpet went amok with melodious sounds
These I've always desired - a titular prince
Worthy of all admiration in the whole of the five emirates