THE BEGGAR'S MISTAKE

He trundled swaggering to the maid

Expectation shining bright
He thinks her a kindly damsel
The type to spare a dime

His hard-pressed luck since morn was sore

Made worse by the vengeful sun
And so again he prays to find
Compassion from this one

He dusts his battered beggar-bowl

And dons his tired smile
And intoning his mantra sure
He serenades in style

He sang her praise, intoned God’s grace

Incised a prayer or two
And when this failed, he turned his bowl
Into a minstrel’s tool

But sadly to his stark dismay

Her heart was mercy-proof
For all he got for his pestering pleas
Was a heart-stopping, sharp-tongued reproof

Be gone from me you lazy fool

Is missing a limb your excuse to dey beg?
My late grandfather lost his legs in the war
And till death was a goldsmith beyond compare

Our man to be sure, beat a hasty retreat

As quick as his leg and stump would bear
And from then swore to never judge by the look
But by God, how can one really tell?

MY GRANDMOTHER

I remember my Grandmother
Sitting on her raffia-mat
Her wrinkled back resting
On the sand-texed wall
Of our satellite town flat
Sitting there, sagely
Half-blind, bare-chested
Hair cut low
Childish yet so old

Sitting there, shaking her crossed legs

Twiddling her thumbs
Guess that’s where father got that from
She sits for hours, head bowed
In sweet thoughts lost
I remember her old spring bed
Her faithful bottle of Orheptal
She took religiously
A ritual of some sort

Then there were the pains

Her eyes you see
And for that we remember
Her Phensic pills, “fensiriki” she called them
And every day she took them
Another ritual I guess

Then her “egusi” remains a legend

An expert she was at peeling those
Would do them for hours
Borne from years of practice no doubt
I will never forget her “egusi” soup
It was the highlight of my journey
Anytime we went home
To see her in those last days

I remember us then
Loving her … effortless really
She was so consumingly loveable
And to her
I knew we were special
Her grandchildren
The sparkling stars
in the night sky
Of an old woman

Then there was the greatest ritual of all

Every night she did it
Her hymn and prayers you see
Yes, I remember
Clear as now or yesterday
“Abide with me”

I remember my grandmother

I think she’s gone
But sometimes
Looking at father
I’m not so sure.

TWO FLAGS AND A GRAVE

 

By this somber bridge

On the sultry brow
Of this abstruse canal
In Oke Afa
The new tourist haven
For the grim-hearted
Lies the latest parody
Of our national honor

 

Not a world-class monument

To glorify the Arts
Or an eighty-foot statue
To epitomize our coalesced vanity
But a grave
The size of my grandfather’s orchard
A restless resting place
For the innocent damned
 

For such are the importuned few

Who paid with their many dreams
For a multitude’s folly
As once again the hapless masses
Die needlessly in a tragedy
That could have been averted
Had conscience and honesty
Formed turgid threads
In our national fabric
 

The drama must have been

The sick coinage
Of a black-hearted playwright
For the very bombs we bought
With our tax-payer’s sweat
To act for us a shield
From hostile foes
Has thus so wickedly
The same tax-payers slain
 

Oh pain and dismay

To see their teeming throng
Moved as a sea of termites
Fleeing the tongues of a hungry flame
Deadly explosions all about
Booms, blasts and deafening bangs
They fly unheeding crazed by fear
Into the watery arms
Of our fearsome canal

And for their sacrifice what had power to say?

Naught but the usual propaganda
An opportune time
For emergency campaigns and paltry relief
Cosmetic tears
And well-rehearsed sighs
And in Oke Afa
Two flags and a grave
A constant signpost
To our collective debris

 _________________________________________________________

Do we remember them at all? well this one is for the innocent damned of the January 27 2002 Bomb Blast, Lagos, Nigeria.

ODE TO THE GIRL CHILD

Nine months of bated trepidation

You await your birth with plenteous anxiety
Unsure of your welcome’s nature
If welcome you’ll eventually be
And wisdom says: enjoy the wait
For the luxuries you now savor
May be your best in years to come

At last your birth-hour dawns

And in love-hated pain
You taste life’s light
Buoyed forth in your pool of bloody glory
“It’s a girl,” cackles the silvered midwife
Her toothless gums
Your first sight in Earth-Dom

Suddenly, a voice reminiscent

Of your mother’s womb-land
Growls a heart-wrenching rejoinder
That will haunt your every day
“Oh shit, why?”
What back then was a mystery to grasp
Now by the process of years
Becomes crystal-clear

As you kneel by the grinding stone

And watch your brother
Again school-bound
Proudly accompanied
By your father’s loving pat
Understanding dawns in finer hew

And as the pepper yields to the fiery grate

Of your grinding stone
It sings in painful notes
Your ill-composed dirge
You are a girl … you are not a boy
Had you been a boy …had you been..

Your father’s voice gallops in

From the far horizons
Of your fervid thoughts
With seething menace
And those miserable words
It cuts your heart all over again
“Oh shit why?”

Come now little girl

Brazen up wont you?
It is early yet to embrace melancholy
Yea, you have served your brother well
And now though a tender shoot
Must serve a husband too

So with three hours to grow

By a bargain struck at your very birth
You are dolled-up and shipped-off
To old Hassan’s bed

Your mother though stricken

Can scarce lift a limb
For in cruel-same manner
She married your sire
She tells you of duty
And warns you behave
For with your dower-sum
Will her lord’s debt be paid

So hapless you setout

A good wife to be
And quickly encountered
Your lord’s lust and fist
In triple-scalding pain
You brought-forth his seed
Your tender-shoot shriveled
Your scars go unhealed

Now suffering the stigma

Of a widow at youth
The worst yet unfolds
As you’re named sorceress too
For though Hassan’s tree-fall
Was a debt owed to wine
They claim still you killed him
And must speak your guilt

But how else to show all

Your innocence plain
Save drinking the vile broth
Of your husband’s washed remains
In seven days they claim
Shall your guilt find you out
But alas your innocence is powerless
To save you from germs.