African Poetry

WHATEVER happened to the elephant –
Hurrah for Thunder –
...

Coming and going these several seasons,
Do stay out of the baobab tree,
Follow where you please your kindred spirits
...

Dzogbese Lisa has treated me thus

It has led me among the sharps of the forest
...

They picked Akanni up one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep.
...

BEFORE YOU, my mother Idoto,
Naked I stand;
Before your weary presence,
A prodigal
...

I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
a letter that would tell
of this desire
...

In vain your bangles cast

Charmed circles at my feet;
...

 The casualties are not only those who are dead.
 They are well out of  it.
 The casualties are not only those who are dead.
 Though they await burial by installment.
...

There where the dim past and future mingle
their nebulous hopes and aspirations
there I lie.
...

(with drum accompaniment)
AND THE HORN may now paw the air howling goodbye…
For the Eagles are now in sight:
Shadows in the horizon-
...

The weaver bird built in our house

And laid its eggs on our only tree
...

Today is Sunday.
I fear the crowd of my fellows with such faces of stone.
From my glass tower filled with headaches and impatient Ancestors,
I contemplate the roofs and hilltops in the mist.
...

Nightfall comes like
a dreaded disease
seeping through the pores
of a healthy body
...

Woman, place your soothing hands upon my brow,
Your hands softer than fur.
Above us balance the palm trees, barely rustling
In the night breeze. Not even a lullaby.
...

I dreamt I saw an eye, a pretty eye,

In your hands,
...

Voice: What is this that I hear from the piper's flute?
Has the town crier gone mad to announce to strangers
The secrets of the ancient rituals?
...

EYE OPEN on the sea,
eyes open, of the prodigal;
upward to heaven shoot
where stars will fall from.
...

When the story shall be told,
No matter whose death it shall report,
Then shall we, bold ones in
...

Joao was young like us
Joao had wide awake eyes
and alert ears
hands reaching forwards
...

My Lips are twisted by Sharp Knives of the Bantu
Warriors, till Bleeding Words flow from Tongue's Mantle.
...