Mr Preacher

Do not tell me– keep shut
when the cost of survival here
is  like 'haling helium in hell.
Don't tell me– close your trap–
heaven is a diaper, a thick towel
to wipe and dry sweaty frustrations...
Maybe you should retell me
you'll be like angels
with a new body whiter than snow
when you die. Don't!
Ask me if I believe your dogmas, oh preacher.
The road a front of the sanctuary
you call god's with a big G
is full and overflowing with
potholes, death traps, mosquito breeding centers and
beggars- god's children with empty pockets
who drop their last mites
with sorrow swollen faces
forced to smile against
your giant personal projects;
forced to smile by
the mirror message– god blesses
cheerful givers.
Why not say
the truth there is-
god is not man and needs no aid.
you tell us you are his oracle
and like god, his oracle must be rich
enough to fly jets nations
cannot afford in decades without huge debts
and live in gold coated mansions
on earth. But you forgot you said
earth too will pass away
with fire and brimstone.
Mr Preacher, I need a new sermon.

chidish thought

If monies were to be leaves of a special tree in
the forest– a tree having spikes on its barks–
stems and branches; a tree surrounded by
poisonous reptiles– snakes and their close allies;
a tree guarded by demons from above and
angels from below the earth's crust, life would
still continue, life will also have a termination
date. Humans will still survive anyhow.

All the way from Benin, a grasshopper stuck to
the wiper of a vehicle bound for Kano. I
wondered why it refused to stop at Kaduna– to
play in the fresh and green grasses near Zaria.
Why didn't it hop into the lush forests of Lokoja,
to sniff the sweet air surrounding the confluence
of river Niger and river Benue? I still don't know.
I am still wondering. On getting to Sabongari
park, Kano, the driver stopped finally– his final
stop. A redneck lizard climbed the car screen
and ate the grasshopper. I am wondering
why.

L.A.D

I dug my heart in sand
to find it is your artery
pumping life
and choking the mal-angel
strapping men
an uncomely cloak

imagine

plant a virile seed of thought
on a fertile mind
you need no rain
to grow it into a tree
with fruits edible for
this generation and the next

I shall write about this place

out of thick piles of rubbles

out of mountains of broken bricks

out of anonymous heaps of bones

out of red seas that flow

out of an explosion

a child struggles out

of the frozen back of a mother

once warm with life

but the rescuers say: a

mystic bird sketched maps

with droppings on his head

moments before the blast

so they pick sticks, and club

this handiwork of god, this miracle

till he joins his mother and the rest

who came haggling for cheap bread

to fill empty pouches beneath their breasts

not knowing the earth would do the eating

travel guide to a foreign friend

if you come to my african city
and the swollen streets swallow you
and the swollen stories in you,
will you be carefree like a northern bird
whose nest has been blown away
by careless northeastern trade wind?
will you in defiance perch
you and your starched grief on a branch
of that lowlife nest under high tension cables?
(your new home not home enough
to drown your metallic frustration)
will you remain still; ruffled yet resolved
with hope glistening on your beaks, your lips
like that homeless bird
at peace with the furious breeze?
if you come my african city
and steaming turbines of boozing business
evaporates the last pennies left
for your trip back home,
would you again say black skin
paints the red of a heart black
and that there's nothing pure in coal
even though it is kilned red
the colour of burnt bricks
a symbol of love like an enterprise?

Death

You who steal men and songs from
hearts once filled with operas.

You who sulk soundscapes,
mapping sorrow
in diminuendos
till silence becomes sacred

To you,
a country  is a castle
built with tears and sand
and blood.

where else is safe?

Someone please tell me where
else is safe. Free me
from the turbulence
rocking earth's boat.
Should I fade into mars?
I hear it is now habitable.
Should I run into thin spaces
in my damaged television?
I dare not, for
a newscaster would again slip out
to speak and spit bombs and bullets
of Syria, of Iraq, of Egypt, of Yemen...
Of war torn zones
reminding me of Rekya, my sister.
She sat there, that afternoon
folded like leaves wrapped by
ants and fear, 
listening to a familiar song,
a defiant anthem composed
by the war upon us-
of shrapnel drumming on rooftops,
shredding a part of us
in bits, teething & milking us dry
of tears, borrowed from the sea
in our eyes.
Rekya is now dust and memory
in a glass, framed in my heart.
Home is no more home
no more a garden like Eden...
Home is now a grave
with bloodseeds sprouting from the war

Fulani boy

In a manger he was born

in the midst of endangered peace,

in the season of turban-faced boys

hiding under stained waters of religion.

By a single-mom he was raised

after papa's blood soaked the arid earth;

"he was hit by a blind bomb"

so said a frightened eye witness.

"I didn't see the shrapnel,

just his head lying next to his frame

after the blast that blanked stares

and blurred the sense of reason."

He was raised out of inheritance-

a herd of cattle; a mud castle

and a bag full of pebbles

picked from papa's death bed.

He soon became a man

at a green age of fourteen

when he fought intruders

with his mosquito-like hands

off mummy's weak frame;

they wanted to get into her

like they do others.

No one is safe. Not even safety!

After the fight, he lost his sight

and life's blanket became thin.

He asked for a flute

to blow away his sorrow,

rather than stay mute

to the new forms, shapes and figures.

He is now seen in markets,

without a cow, without a mud castle,

but with a bamboo flute

piping soluble songs from his heavy heart

to fill the void of a lifetime.

death's sting

death's sting
                      is toxic.
                      harks our breathe.

       in death's eardrum

we become
                    mumbled speeches.
we become
                    speechless.

At Danzomo

There, they stood reveling
the soon-to-fade moment,
with lungs longing for more mint
in our short soldier songs.
There, they stood fixed to a spot
with unexpressed joy in their open-ended
hearts.
And watery eyes begging
to be free
from the whips of ignorance.

Dear Afrika

I'm lost in your legend;
lost in your moments-
between joys and pains;
lost in your mixed feelings;
lost in you
and in your incomplete twists and turns;
lost in your presence;
lost
but found
in your arms

Hadejia

i.
In Hadejia,
there's a reason to dance
on worthy capsules of fine clay
before the wind blows them away
ii.
a reason to drink in haste
a glass full of satisfaction
ere it is licked by the scorching sun
iii.
there's a reason to build
dream castles out of mud
that would stand as questions
iv.
in the mouth of a stranger
seeking solace in a sahara
distant miles away from home

Sahara blues

i.
when the sahara yawns
high octaves are pitched
by dust laden dry leaves
running on the surface
of the mirror sand
and lyrics grow like trees in my heart

Osemen

I have spent a few days like decades without a
sight of you;
slept many impossible nights away from your
warmth.
But my memory of you is still fresh-
as fresh as new early morning palm wine.
That picture of you
in your long flowing Ankara gown
of many colours
still hangs in that old frame in my heart.
I have decided not to change it- that old frame.
Even though anvils battle with me
to have a taste of you inside the glass,
I won't compromise.
Yes, I won't change that frame,
for it reminds me of my forever promise.
Osemen, I'll be back soon,
though I can't say when, for I know not when;
but I know a friend who does- he is my maker
and the owner of my breath.
You can write him a mail with your tears.
Maybe, he'll be pricked to let you know.
But if he fails to reply your mail on time
because of his many-yet-unattended-messages
from his seemingly countless clients,
just wait for me like you would the soon-coming-
king.
Wait for me like a neem tree would the rain
after a long season of drought.
Wait for me like you would our unborn child
still swimming the streams in my scrotal sacs.
And I'll be with you in a twinkle of an eye. Be patient!

bottom power

there is a deep yoke on her face.
when she beams,
her laughter
knifes & shreds
the song and sun in a man hood.

my wormwood story

you may want to know
what holds the moon
in my mouth?

you may want to know
why the sun shines gloomily
on these scars on my face

these scars on my soft skin
are not tattoos
they are unscripted plays
waiting for freedom's day
when they'll be retold
to my children
if I ever become a father

on Sunday the preacher says
"repent or go to hell"
and I'm like:
"which other hell can be hotter
than twenty five ironed stories
like postage stamps on my skin?"

what can be more hot,
bring more hurt,
build more unroofed huts
than this coldness in my heart?

I'm now the face of newspapers
a celebrity by evil chance
held to fame by a father
whose love for morality
means brutality

who will I share these stories with?
I mean the scars like bodyguards
on my body

who cares a sip
of my story?
my wormwood story

We've lost count

What do we do
with these rising numbers?
what do we do
with these heaps of bones
growing like manured forest trees
whose head is that
swimming in that boiling pot of stew
over there?
the food vendor's or a customer's?
those limbs now lying static
like dead logs of wood
once had hands and fingers
they once had life and veins
and blood not seen
but, now they lay in state
what do we do with the stories
and poems arising from these bodies?
read read read
weep weep weep

dear mine

I count the remainder days
of our distance apart
like prayer beads
and watch them slip
through my fingers
slowly as ever.
to keep alive my dying spirit,
I fixed you in the last three pages
of Mandela's long walk to freedom.
no worries,
I kept you there, safe and sound.
But each time I read about Winnie
I am tempted against convention
tempted to look at you
in between the unread pages...
your photo smile
unforced
evergreen
pure as gold
calm as cucumbers
warms my heart

toxic affection

oh black mermaid
your stunning beauty aerates my being

your eight-shadow holding a turner,
mixing sand and oil in my head,
is all I see when I see you.
Is this madness, or her synonym?

at day, you are the moon
at night, you become sun

resolved, I melt
to mould the bricks of this darkness
and steal into your dream
for a clearer view: blue, not blur

and surely that settles it
the crisis looming in my head...
we both are mad, thanks to you!

Mallam Madori

Mallam Madori leaves a damp question
in the mouth
on the tongue
and in the milky eyes of
that stranger swimming a dry sea
of endless thoughts

the sun is a firefly
the sun is a firefly
these trees are brown hypocrites--
nature's prostitutes
longing for the sky's short service:
a shallow season of green smiles

answers are what I seek

answers are what I seek
when I probe the sea in your eyes
I want to know why
your skin is lined and wired
red and blue and purple
and more colours than a rainbow
holds
I want to know why
your body has become like
a painter's workshop
is it custom? is it religion?
answers are what I seek
tell me when man inhumaneness
became culture: a way of life...
was I asleep when
the world moved a step forward?
let me probe the sea in your eyes
maybe answers would fall
when your next tear drops
maybe answers would remain
as powdery or salty pellets
when the sun licks it
and dries it up for yet another

How to write an African poem

Like an orange in the hand of a hungry boy, open your heart, turn your eyes inside out, pour out their contents on a canvass. This is the first draft. I hope you primed the surface? Next, lend your eyes & ears to the elements- the wind, Atlantic, Saharan...; plains and mountains and hills with hunched backs; crisp rivers and waterfalls that pronounce your name; moon as constant as the sun of dry seasons; whispering trees that gossip you to bright coloured butterflies hovering the waters above your head, searching for answers in your dark and lovely afro, your hair... I can go on and on and on, but the list is as endless as the ends of the earth, where the sky arcs into illusionary waters... If your poem becomes shapeless and naked, wear her a dress. You can choose Ankara, Adire, Kampala... Good! Africa is now wearing the sun on her face. But this is not the end. Just a means.

I'll leave words

before i leave
this encyclopedia of your heart
to dusts and webs and
all sorts of insects
there are words like
birthmarks i wish to script

words the world has
never heard of or seen
since she got the name
earth
by celestial taxonomy

words
whose lungs i pray
my verbs breathe into
to give their skeletons flesh and life

words that would walk
stand upright on twos
sit with you on the dining table
and maybe play my night role
when i shut my eyes in sleep

i surely will leave
words
with angelic wings
that can fly to you
as sedating songs
whenever you with your tongue
taste the marrah of my absence
filling your mouth

i shall leave tasty words
red wines and candies

and intoxicating words too
to lift your spirit high
above its low sea level

words to still the sandstorms
breaking the rose flowers
you have planted in your heart
in memory of me

i'd leave ever fresh words like mentol
words you'd feel in your throat
when the children read me
via poetry apps in portable devices

i'll not leave
without leaving words with magical hands
like mine
to keep on playing my keys
on your piano,
your sumptuous body
minors on majors on sharps

everywhere your eyes roll
like an owl prying the dark
searching for a missing link
i'll leave words

and in your water colour dreams
i'll leave my footnotes

sunset in Kano

evening
sun
in Kano
is like
an overripe orange
stuffed
in the cloud's mouth

Recapitulations

there is this big guy up there
watching subjects turn objects
objects turn tiny insects
and midgets too micro
for his omnipresent eyes

there is this big guy somewhere
swimming in a pool of regret
why he spoke you you and you
why he breath fire into fuel on clay
instead of more ants, more birds, more trees
more rivers, more earth. more stones
without emotions to quake his heart

more and more
as subjects turn objects
objects turn midgets
humans become the numb in numbers
as death tolls daily rise as oceans do
filling his heart with pollens of damp grief
why he made you you and you

Spectabilis

my heart was a forest of flowers
full of greens & happiness
before that uncalled-for call from the clouds
if I had seen death's angel
I would have seized her throat
broken her lips
blocked her ovule
and culture the uncured rivers
meandering down from eyes
to cheeks on face
then down into earth's mouth
(earth is never satisfied
she is a kwashiorkor child--
swollen stomach hungry eyes
longing tongue
insatiable watery desires)

for a season the rain has ceased
and the forest is losing its green
my happiness is developing false toes
and shades of lemon
the lemon goes lighter
to a fainter hue unknown to me
oh, it turns yellowish Brown
oh, it's now brown
the colour of sunburnt leaves

the wind came and blew away everything
and I am left with a flower
I still don't know how it managed to survive
so I say thank you dear friend
who watered when we lost sight of & hope
in anything green that with time greys
(for they turn brown too quickly)

it has happened again!
the flower is no more
the flower is no more
a hungry goat ate it
and disappeared just like that

my heart is a graveyard
my heart is a desert
a flower so precious
a flower so charming
with open secrets in her petals
with magic & gold particles as pollens
is gone

Ehizogie

this poem is not dead

(for Eunice Dibie)

this poem should not be read in quietude
this poem should not be read alone
this poem should not be read at all
if there are no handkerchiefs in town
to mop up rivers & streams of sorrow
that draws pathways & maps on the face
this poem must be sung slowly like a hymn
without drums without cymbals without flutes
with only silence as background sound
this poem must be hummed
it must transport vibrations
to the holies of holies
this poem must remain lost in ears
as echoes from distant howls
this poem must have legs
this poem must have wings
it must travel home to warm mother's heart
to tell her her cactus is no more
that her garden is now like a desert
(tell mama if you have muscles
in your tongue and in your hands
to hold a thousand genies in one body)
this poem must fly into space
and like a rocket never come back
this poem wears a long face
this poem lies straight on the ground
facing the heavens
this poem is blind it sees no more
this poem is dead
this poem is dead
soon it would be forgotten
soon it would fade into a continuum
of numbers sinking into sand by the day
soon it would vanish from the eyes
but specks of memories would linger
this poem is dead yet invaluable
this poem is a precious gift
stolen by the quick hands of fate
this poem is unfinished business
with favourable outcomes
this poem must come back to us again
this poem is not dead

Ehizogie Iyeomoan

The world may never hear us

Even if our knifed hearts melt volcanoes

and our skins shrink like snails close to the fireplace;

even though the edited stories between our thighs sink ships

and like foliage paper we sway this way and that way,

the whirl wind tossing us about in episodes,

we will only probably be remembered

chapter after chapter, leaf by leaf,

by only half a handful of those who sniff our agonies

and get high in the pleasures

buried in their shallow graves;

even though we sound our trumpets of war

and with borrowed hands beat our battle drums torn,

like a salamander, dumb to the torrents of rushing waters

the noisy world would be icy silent as always;

silent to our cries for justice...

Visit any nearby police station,

you’ll marvel at the histories written on our breasts.

The rehab centers can hold only a few letters of us.

Soon they’ll cough out a handful back into the streets

where we came from- as books with blank pages

full of super stories only imagined.

Our orgies like oceans will flow on and on and on,

unending, our stories will only make newspaper headlines

but a climax would never be reached.

We will only hear ourselves ourselves.

Ehizogie Iyeomoan (c) 2015

should i dry the tears?

when the night falls

on her kneels again

praying Anna,

sobbing

drops

upon drops

of solid tears,

should i stay consoling her

picking the grains on her head

hoping stars fall from her eyes?

should i pour my sands on her flood

till the world dries up again?

straight from my heart

this night tastes of hot and cold things

my feelings are lukewarm

neither hot

nor cold

upon volta basin

mother, let's row back to volta basin

sit in the palms of the gold coast

for the gulf of guinea sees us as his

mother, while you cast our nets

upon her rich-in-fish waters

i shall look around for any naked boy

black and beautiful

diving in and out of the liquid mirror

amidst chattering laughter and giggles

and i shall become one with him

upon volta basin

ehizogie iyeomoan

love in the dungeons (for Goree)

my father and your mother
are now no more

the sands of the land
the shells scattered on-shore, unsure
of the pebbles near the water’s mouth
and the rocks sucking salt from the sea
all saw them when they left

it was a sunny day in 1779
so said a footnote in the slave-house

my father and your mother
now no more
where lovers in two different rooms
separated, for he was below sixty kilograms
and her boobs, pillow soft. your mother

they had felt each other’s skin
through holes in the wall dividing their continents

they had hopes in the black yokes of their eyes
sunny hope
that the white man would one day
pass them through that fluid
through that gate of no-turning-back
that may reunite them in the sugarcane farms

my father would again hold your mother
when the masters are away

cuffs on their hands
chains on their legs
padlocks marrying both mouths

your mother would again see my father
making love to her
in her dream...

love in the dungeons (for Goree)

ehizogie iyeomoan

before you said your final goodbye

you felt like picking up the fragments
and grains left of your shattered life
and starting all over again...
again from that spot where the world bolted
tightly the nuts of your heart

you felt there were a thousand men in your head-
five hundred on both sides
tugging with your ligaments
tearing apart those elephant emotions
bragging with the muscles of your brain

that very moment you felt like
borrowing legs from a cheetah
not needy of it
and running ahead of time
to a place of total seclusion
ahead of things hip-hoping on your mind

you felt like stuffing you and your worries
in that empty seashell on the sands of that beach
by that seaplane you alone could see
and sharing in her sunburns;
and that very moment, you felt like
tasting the sane wine lettered in insanity

then you see you flying out of space
in a stolen spaceship
where you again lose your firm grip
and you drop..., falling and falling and falling
till you wake up from
that big dream called life

before you said your final goodbye

iyeomoan ehizogie

hysteria

there’s an artist sitting in my head

making sketches of my thoughts.

he would like to finish his task

before the moon kisses the heavens-

three masterpieces for the gallery

one for a grand exhibition.

so he strikes more bold lines-

hatching and crosshatching

then blurring the rough ends

he bites his fingers in content

as his graphite’s nib breaks

floating on the canvass, my head.

so he carves again and again

starting the process all over-

the hatching, the crosshatching

and the mild blurring of rough ends

hysteria

(c) ehizogie iyeomoan

soon

soon,

another king may rise

to decamp this crown

horse-backing on the throne. he may

rise with an iron fist

for the lover-boy

and honey for his coy mistress: the lover-boy's...

but if the queen permits this

checkmate on her chessboard,

things would never again remain sane.

they may be sugar in her tea

for her parched throat,

but the stomach would go sour

soon and very soon

(c) ehizogie iyeomoan

our kabukabu buses

I once entered a fourth-hand public bus (kabukabu) and almost choked out... The result is this piece of poem below-

these beasts of burden
breathe only out. never in.
through nozzles, they exhale
disco fires and black fumes, like lit cigars.
these burdened beasts are just like coffins
with perforated sides
for shrinking lungs of sitting-ones
awaiting the pilot’s final step
on the frictionless brake,
for a final drop-off log,
where the living leftovers again float down
as dead sweating leaves
severed from palsied branches

our kabukabu buses

(c) Ehizogie Iyeomoan