COLOURLESS RAINBOW

...the ink of this pen

splashes a song - not of the seduced screams

that blazed in the soul of nights under the fire of the moon,

melting the melodies of dance,

so nostalgic! But of our dying voices!

The ink of this pen splashes a song

not of gods and goddesses; ancestral rituals and spirited masquerades

of the glorious past! A song, not of prides of lions and black leopards

that roared on ancient hills and mountains; not of graceful gazelles that leaped to drink

of blue waters and hunters that brought elephants home on their heroic shoulders!

But the fire that kindles the spirit of the moon in its virtuous fullness and awakens the drums

of the heart for a new dance!

The ink of this pen

splashes a song crowned in thorns! The song of the tears and the blood drowning hearts!

Drowning our dreams! The song of the arrows of blood tearing our world apart!

The song of butterflies kissing dunghills and pigs grunting on the blossoms of our dreams!

Leaders in their gruesome generosity drinking honey and licking palm-oil

from the broken caabash of the hungry

whose mouths feed on their own ashes and drink their own tears for peace!

The ink of this pen

splashes a song of a lost race yearning for identity

in the darkness of a moonless night!

The song of a race who does not know who she is!

a colourless rainbow!

...and so, if the pen of this poet pierces

like an arrow to the heart and words of truth wound your pride,

I plea, let your boiling blood rise and gush! Let your trickling tears burst and flow

down your eyes like the ink of inspiration

splashing a song of peace

a song of love

a song of dignity

a song of hope

to paint this horizon of a colourless rainbow

with the colours of our undying dreams...

ABIOLA'S CRY

I know your faces, splashed by the threads of light against the shadowy

walls of death! I know those eyes! Those dark devilish eyes staring at the spirit

of a struggling soul, held behind your bars of brutality! Tortuous tyranny and poisonous peace!

And do I not know your footsteps?

Those brutal boots that crunch aloud along the corridors of death and terror!

Take my soul! Take my soul!! Feed my flesh to the vultures! And splash my blood in your

democratic skies to paint the rainbow with the colours of a legacy

you never believed in!

For this spirit shall blaze in your darkened dawn

like the fire of the sun! Rekindled, this voice shall be the cockcrows

Of your voiceless dawn! These tears shall splash on the earth,

washing away the dabs of blood still dribbling in its unstained innocence!

Still struggling! Still hunting you in your sleepless nights!

This heartbeat shall thump again not like the gongs of a dance,

But like thunder in the ears of those who shed crocodile tears

And shoot bullets to the sky in my days of dust!

Listen! Listen to the throb of my blood

For like palm-oil, it washes the land from the cold blood of your democracy

Born by tyranny! Baptised by brutality!

Crucified by truth!

TELL US

Countless cowries have been tossed and tossed

on the shrines of earth; Countless kola-nuts broken and chewed

between brown teeth; Countless splash of palm-wine poured beneath palm-fronds

to know your place in the hands of destiny!

And countless times,

We have seen the magic of the moon in your eyes

twinkling with that silvery illumination of love! Countless times,

We have seen the motherly milk of your breasts flowing sweetly!

And we have heard, countless times, the music of your heart titillating with the thrills

of tranquil nights! Countless times, we have seen the glow of your soul,

rise like the fires of a dance blazing in the womb of the calabash,

and like the throbbing blood in my heart

I have felt the rhythm of your drums deep down inside

But tell us!

Tell us why widows sleep with bereaved brooms in the mourns of midnight?

Tell us why we cry out from this cage of captivity

like wounded leopards? Tell us! Tells us why it is blood that flows

from your breasts when your children run to your lap? Tell us why we love to dance

to the rumble of guns and canons under moons that cry blood?

Tell us! Tell us why we hear no drums of thunder

when the lightning flashes in your skies? We see no rain, after whirlwinds

and dark clouds

rage the earth...Tell us!

...and this pen shall bleed the last drop of its blood,

finding its way through these labyrinth of lines with solitary lamentations-

for I am lost in the images of you as yet another cowries is tossed

to unveil the black face of my virgin and bride whom I made love to in the moonlight

and found no blood on her garment in the dawn…