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