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