Longing Thought Poem by John Chizoba Vincent

To Adedayo Adeyemi Agarau

Do you remember Sade?
Do you remember yesterday we flew kite
at the cloudy street of Ibadan?
Do you remember how I channelled your
thought to those boys who went and never
return home with their beds of happiness.
Do you remember Sade and Kemjy?
Those you said that have steps to every beat,
Not in this season shall a lizard grow hair.
You said Kemjy's body was a dream and
Sade' was a song to the nightingales at night.
Do you remember those pictures of Ibadan we took?
You were having no front teeth and your
Mother said you sold them for a seed of groundnut.
I was able to slide into your thought at dawn,
Do you still remember the meatless meal we ate
together at the feast of breasting lunch.
Those were our dreams to build a home,
those were our hope to hope for a home;
a home to call a home not a forest of sins.
Do you remember the poem you wrote to Kemjy?
Do you remember asking Sade of her Oriki?
Do you remember breaking her waist beads?
She was a laughter in your lips,
you were a singer at her door.
Of a lighter smile, how is Ibadan now?
those mould houses we built, are they still there?
Children and wife, nko?
Never knew that Kemjy will carry your generation!
Take a chill pill
reply quick before you peel,
those ripples of fate is still here
drowning in my longing thought of us.


© John Chizoba Vincent
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