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TRAVAILS JUNGLE

Two thorns on a brown thumb
One thorn in a brown thumb
Three thorns and red fingers
A joke can kill!

Nsukka, the journey
your check is in the mail, ha ha
jokes can kill
jokes can cure
For pain is only in the mind- hello
Second chance, always a miracle
Second choice, never a miracle, never admirable

Nsukka, the journey
Nsukka, the return? Now
Fast food dinner
Walk in the streets
Talk in the streets
Unusual bills to pay
Talk in the streets
Walk in the streets
Lost years in travails jungles
Why some men hit their wives
And wonder so long that way

As the rise and fall and fall of a falling hero
Fuels souls with inspiration
But doesnt knowledge breed dominion

While the rise and fall and rise of a rising hero
Feeds all with aspiration, yet
Increase in knowledge may beget denominations

ANCESTRAL RHYTHMS

Act I:
When the oil palm
Fruit ripens for one
With a blunt matchet,
Is that fortune?

Collect nuts from
My palm fruit- is an act of
Hospitality- but the visitor
Never takes home the fruit bulk

same mother
different destinies
As no two palms are exactly the same
Yes, they came with trade word
And they are still stealing from our soil
Their promises like baskets of flowers
same mother
different destinies
For they are greedy
Insatiable like some of us

Act II
Is it not that
When one returns from
a distant town with lumps and meat chops
filling his bag- it is those
he gave who gave back to him?
For it is said that
It is at the home
of the kind one that
birds build nests around.

And
The child who pays
tribute to Nze is offering sacrifices
For his own time
But you still question
ways of our elders
ways of our wisdom.

SEASON

FOR WHEN the eye
Of the earth
Throws down
Its spears
And the waters of the heaven
With its tears. We
Lift our hoes to the hills
And we
Lift our baskets from the hills
For our land
Is rich.

PURGATION

THE PRIEST came with a ritual
to bring the sick to life
and to drift the evil away
but the soil bred, grew less food
the vent pond allowed, reflected no
Mirror Images
the solitude within man wandered
and the wonder of heavens
spears within
that we were dying in goldfields
thorns of pressed shrubs, impress
pierce into our bare bodies
that we tried crying in our cropfields
rainbow, rare, no common sight.

Such so, priest, all high:
from the four corners of the earth
all came with a spell, bound:
as to water the land, the fields
as to fertilize, enrich the fields
but soil grew, only bred more food
and the ponds mirrored images
but multitude within, wandered.

Such so, that God from His thrown, heaven
came to tell
cleansing us, free
and now, we are.

ABORTED GOD

An African wooden shrine sculpture
behind plexiglass in a museum in the West

Look at the
Fate
Of an
Abandoned god

Glass over the
Face
Of the
Abominable god
Children now how here misuse as
Play mate, doll

Naked, unclothed. Alone now how here the
Place
Of the
Looted god
Children abuse... misuse
Ooze into dough, ooze into Goooze dough.

THESE LITTLE IRONIES

I SAID to them,
We say to ourselves
As they said to themselves
This is the way we are:
The ones who have knives
Have no yams; those
Who have yams
Have blunt knives.

I said to them
We say to ourselves
As they said to themselves
This is the way we live

Yet, they stood a-gap
Trails and traps o toy-tigers, sirens
Kin characters in search of authors, fortune
Why are you listening to the bip?
Sounds character that can to exile
Banish banner over us that is God
So I say to all
We say to ourselves
As they will say to themselves
This is the way we live
We... now laugh
For we now know how it is.

EXPECTATIONS

WHEN OLD friends meet
Relics and goals
Upward to the heavens, shot
Secrets into no ears, told

As we celebrate life
reminiscences
let us all remember that
brown is the color of earth

WHEN OLD friends meet
Relics and goals
Upward to forest of stars, shot
Secrets into no ears, unfold

As the voice
accompanying the masquerade
muffles
let us not forget that
green is a color of leaves
red is not a color of the sea.

FLYING A WONDROUS MECHANICAL BEE

Neednt blame, question how
For it is by
The realm that we take
A bowl of hot soup

Neednt blame, question how
It is
With smooth tongue
That the snail climbs over thorns

Neednt blame, question questions
That, where
The child picked a giant snail
There always his bearing

Neednt blame, question questions
For the hunter
With one arrow
Rarely shoots high into the sky

Neednt blame, question
That we may
Protect this that is ours
This that is: ours.