The African Talking Drum Poem by Ifeoluseyi ifeoluwapo Ifeyemi

the intention of the african talking drum is not to entertain body, musically
or in an exercise of move and shake
but an invitation to an initiation
by our ancestors who evoke
the very essence of our existence
the drum as well as the drummer
are a synergy of sounds
in a binary of blending
and bending movement into sounds.
Into chants to our ancestors.
mother says every sound tells
its own story, for the drummer,
his heart is a studio of sounds
begging for a ritual; passage
Into the mind of men from the
beckoning beyond. the gods are like us too; mundane and mad with moments
and all there is to relieving; because we
all have been here before, same as every sound that returns from every
tremulous tap that hits the face of whatever animal that once called this skin, body. at the end we are all reincarnation; a phenomenon tied to a matter which cannot exist without the other. this too is the foundation upon which 'Agbajowo lafin soya, ajoji owokan o gberu dori' is laid.

© Richard Ogunseyi Ifeoluwapo