Night Opens My Mind

 

Night opens my mind

like a window

hinged on broken frames

And these hues

of memories, clatter past

like a storm

that slits the mind

 

i walked into her room

nondescript, littered with

relics of yesterday

askew with utensils of laughter

i walked through

the uncultured rafia

of wigs lying on the rug,

bottle of perfume

comb

unbound hand-outs

ear-rings

broken strings of waist-beads

 

 

i flip through the pictures

And behold, again

the smile that stretches

across her face

to the brink of eternity

 

tableaux of myriad silhouettes

on the pages

the album opens

like a cascade of jeans

And veils of pink

 

Songs came at me

in gusts full of dreams

And the past stood

in the ante-chamber of my hearts

threateningly

 

like the volcano, avalanche of volcanoes

erupting, detonating the shock

that exploded my soul

that Wednesday night

 

i stood livid

in the cross-road

of metaphors, i became one

with songs...

  

 

 

My Anioma

 

I plunged headlong

into the depth of your soul,

i crossed the canal over to your heart

i bleed, I crawled to your hearth

 

You are the sea

the river

the flooding catalogue of ebbs

the foxtrot of head-tilting reeds

bathing tadpole in the pool

of rippling lake of Atapko

 

The Niger that caress

the dipping paddles,

frogs croaking in the dawn

like the mermaid’s hallelujah

 

Tomorrow is election

we must run, to the east of your feathers.

Because Arewa is armed to the teeth

Egbesu sings the war-song

And OPC slings the bow like kiriji

and prowl in the shackles of Mushin

i run to you, my Anioma

And you pleat your wings wide

Where i hide under the soft feathers

And listen to your cackling chirrup.

 

 

 

I Will Remember You

 

When nights unfold dreams before me

pictures flash past the wakefulness of my days,

reel past my noon with long and dark shadows

nightmarish shadows that silhouette across the soul

 

i will remember you

 

Let your ghost come to me

wake me from this stream of

arduous sleep, this pain, this grief

that disfigures the soul

 

i will remember you

clad in jeans

that stretch the curves of your waist

with hues subtler than poetry's

strands of your hair

cascade down like mermaid’s

it echoes the pulse of my heartbeat,

the tonality of my laughter

in the bed-room

when your kisses smack of soda-water

 

i battle with my offspring, shamefacedly

over the springs of your soul

welling across the river-bed

of your succulent tomorrow

 

i hold you

till laughter broke the dam of my

dream

into the tropical face of the sun

 

i hold you

till the moon stabs me

with her crescent full of blood

unsheathe in the scabbard of

a scarlet cloud

i hold you, still

in the deep of my purgatory.