The corn has ripened.
With it is the wizened laughter of a
Mirthless age, showing ashy teeth
Of dappled cowries.
A flavescence so bantered by the courage
Of wilting bloom!
Sadly, sea waves truss the feet of
Burning skies, loosening the tongues of beaches,
Which, with ague, recline on cold, cringing currents.
Old cats mourn the fall of strafed pillars
Burrowing through silt-buried kennels re-grassed for the
Salutation of new vistas.
Scattered on the sandy sea shore,
She was thinking of the play of fate,
She could have become a large sea conch,
But the impatient waves left her alone on the shore.
Now she waits to meet her lover in sand,
With the longing of love, in the exuberance of beating waves,
If the waves could stay still on sand for a moment,
She could be holding him in deep love.
In the misty morning, she feels lost,
She does not have any clue of what will happen next,
In the colorful dusky sky,
She creates the image of her feelings in blue sky.
A man picks cowries on the beach,
Strings a beautiful necklace for his love,
Cowries feel happy in the necklace,
Will love to see the smile on the face of love.
YÉMIÍTÀN
If you would stay do stay
Please tease me no longer
My body, no more can bear
But my heart, yet still craves
My womb you make hollow
My hopes many times dashed
How can you be so heartless
With visits that never last
Yémiítàn, my precious child
This foolery is so much pain
Desist your antics my child
A mother can no longer bear
You prey on my deep desire
You tease with your to and fro
Why mock me in my despair
Àbíkú omo, òdájú ènìyàn
I know you, you little trictster
I can sense your deep longings
Too many a time have visited
To visit me yet never stay
So with cowries will I bind you
And with red dust to earth tie you
With deep marks will I brand you
And ensure you never again leave.
Secrets hidden in the sands
known only to the tiny crab
or starfish wandering idly by
as waves collect the ancient treasures
send past truths drawing ever, nigh.
Sand Dollars glisten in amber glow,
as murex and cowries roll amid waves;
of the all the things the beach collects,
amid all shells, the conchs resonate
their waving echoes, seas story treasures.
Upriver - a place where she goes to fetch water and firewood
Hair is neatly decorated with a collection of cowries and coins
Stretch marks that cover the entirety of
her growing belly
Beautiful eyes - eyes that possess a power to kill a man at passion's spot
Beautiful beaded accessories surrounding her charming waist
African who was born with Africa lying comfortably in her womb
Some societies term her 'black and dark as in every picture'
But she wears her culture joyfully every day and night
And aside from her captivating look, skin is purely gold
Downriver - a place where she sits, entertains, and explains stories
Her cultural heritage is a key - a key to understanding her roots
She welcomes a stranger with a cola nut and a bottle of palm wine
She is an African
Not because she was birthed on the
fertile soil of Africa
But because Africa spent nine unbroken solid months in her womb
Grace - a Liberian queen
Adanna - a Nigerian model
Nadia - a Ghanaian royal and
Samuella - a Sierra Leonean seer
They Are Africans.
There is a folk I know
quite too well,
he does not refund when he owe,
at least that's how well I can tell.
Then came a day
stars littered in the sky,
he left the house again,
To in the same sin ply.
He's such a torn
in the feeble flesh,
and a cowries headed horn
seeped in the quintessence.
But on his way
he met a flaw:
a bus collided with him,
and his consciousness took a walk.
Ribs carved, bones twisted,
joints squat, veins stooped,
mitigating blood clutched lethargy,
confetti of dispersing breath imbued.
None to take him from the spot,
since all neighbors were his sport,
even death ain't interested in taking him from the spot,
but if you're, you could go forth.
19:09:28:06:57
Bonny Island
You, who are drunk on the palm wine
of the mighty Atlantic’s eternal fatuity
laugh and make vain in perpetuity
her attempts to blot you out of sight
Daily taunt the thundering waves
whose fury rises several storeys high
but succumb with a crash at your feet
returning fully spent and shamefaced!
Whose palms grow into the heavens
and bow to the earth like rainbows
or, trebuchets of the most bizarre kind
when heavy with ripe fruits and nuts
Who, in defiance to the year-round rain
always has her head above the deluge
bask in the ageless futility to drown you;
instead, nourish your rich vegetation
Arise, for you have slumbered too long
and severely lag in your so many firsts
you glory today at a handful of grains
while Vultures feast on your tomorrow
Arise, for gone are the good old days
when tradewinds brought you cowries
Guineamen are long and forever gone
now, you must create your own winds!
Sept. 30, 2018
AJALA THE TRAVELLER
My name is Ajala
Not Ajala Jalingo but Ajala
the Traveler!
My Aduke will say, Ajala
Ololufeemi Alarinka
You love moving from one
place to another.
But I don't bother.
My footprints,known to the
poor and the rich
I've been to every planet on
earth
Even when I sleep with no
food to eat
Just tell me a town that has
just been birth
With my little cowries, I'll
gather and visit.
The kids will sing, Ajala!
Ajala! Alarinka...
I'll wiggle and dance to the
tune of their local guitar
Maybe with them I'd go visit
Jupiter
Spending our nights on the
water.
That's the life of a traveler.
My name is Ajala
The Son of Mulika aya Isiaka
Mother wants me to be a
Police Officer
But I'm a friend to all
continents, I'm African
Kids; sing my song, Ajala!
Ajala! Alarinka.
Poet
Olajire Damilola Muyideen (SMILING)
Africa is in need, Africa is in need
Africans may be schooled, learned
they may possess degrees and doctorates
in their bags there may carry any cowries
But Africa wants no mushroom dresses
it want not hill heaps of cowry shells
to press buttons of continental patriotism
Africa does not need those globe-trotters
Africa needs new babies not cloned
the ones with honest humility in their hearts
those with genuine love for humanity
the ones who place their species on white clouds
Africa is in need of babies of free calling
the ones who feel for Africa is their mother
those persons raised by blind families
to live blind lives of humane commitments
Prophets ordained in bushes of Africa
Soothsayers with oracles from Western forests
Saviors anointed from snow and icy hills
cannot claim to heal wounds eaten by termites
Africa is in need of those simple babies
the ones who can put aside their blue English
and rainbow French, and climb down from jeeps
babies who can sing lullaby for old mother to rest
I met a collage
hair, a messed-up colored sisal
lips, pasted with red droppings
eyes, grafted lemurs’ spectacles
neck, ring-fenced with cowries
fingers, sharp porcupine quills
legs, wrapped with bull’s colon
feet, balancing on goat hooves
ears, crying “have mercy, you wheels”
clothes, mosaic of bush flowers
confused I was when met her
but I was told the collage I met
was not art piece of an artist
but a modern African girl
Not begging,
for a native dream;
hiding an ocean in the eyes.
The hills were trembling.
I am going to cross the river,
of flames.
I am sitting on the dirt floor,
counting the cowries.
This was my home,
that was my book.
Playing the game of death.
What had you written, O god
with your quivering hand.
I am still following a riderless horse.
Not the least. Any want ...
Give back my blank page.
Satish Verma
It was atlantic beach I went
In search of pearls and cowries
Sad, to voidness I return:
I do not see him, Dave my Lyric Man.
My darling Dave,
Wherever you may be today
Roam not the street when it snows
Lest you soak your feet in it
Snow - yawning hungry morgue-
And coil not like millipede
Nor condense like wintery butter
But remember your warm cafe cup
And that fair lady you used to write about
Drink and bounce and bounce .
20/11/15
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.
Spent seventy cents on sentry saints
Though soul and spirit rebel with the pulse
I read their abuse with an effort of excuse
This rum, this loaf to feast is grossly imbalanced
These pennies paid with pains on African plains
Twice a dozen days my labor effort to afford
This gesture though un-lorded is induced
To keep on keeping on a faint kiss on the cross
Multitudes embrace, a singly saint can't otherwise
Not for the hate, neither duty nor pride
It's to keep the tradition not to go instinct
We were schooled givers never lack
For fair play, takers also never lack
In appreciation, a pauper comes riding a Lexus
And by the way life goes, Earth will crowd Heavens
Wouldn't there be a gendarme post raised?
Then a ghetto for the screening of saints
But for the cents, the kobo's and cowries offered
Heavens will erect a bureau De change
God, for the treasure the Earth offers thee.
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.
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