Fela: In Memoriam

 

            I

He faded gently upon his curved horn

when death came for its borrowed pouch.

A song heavy with the burden of life's

loss, the hard grief of days and nights to come

bowed heads, made jelly of dancing feet.

To steel his heart against fear, he wore death

below his midriff and lived like one

to whom immortality had been granted.

His nimble fingers slowed on the keyboard,

his cheeks no longer ballooned into his horns

as death approached, grave like a debt-collector.

So he took refuge in boastful denial

in answer to the strain of his wheezing lungs.

He saw the dark shadow at his doorpost

and blowing his introit, faded upon his horn.

 

            II

He was born twice, the first time

he spied his earth, shunned his name

whose sound echoed a strange clime,

and returned for the rite to tame

the spirits he would vanquish.

When he was born again, fire

blazed in his eyes to furnish

Ogun's forge; none would retire

until pure steel had been cast

for his backbone. So he stood straight

in hurricanes, in thunderblast -

till death, nothing they could throw

at him would break his back. Nothing.

He walked forbidden streets, walked the row

of set traps and sprung them all. Lifting

up his eyes, he claimed for his art everything.

 

            III

He dipped into the boiling pot of suffering

and found the common factor of our sorrow.

He drank to bottom the ancestral well

of healing water. His speech emboldened

the expelled air of discontent to salute

hope fluttering on a tattered flag. A song,

his long drums had told him, can make a world,

can plant a dream and grow the tree of life.

The loud wail, the cry muted in a heart

dangling from frail threads threatened by fire,

the wound sharp as a knife - he turned them all

into the sound and fury of his songs.

He blew his horn, and regimes heard the rumble

of thundering feet. He chanted a note

and skeletons leapt out of locked closets.

 

 

            IV

He etched his name in the air

and breath doubled its vigour. He dissolved

into water, and tides gladdened fishermen.

He crucified himself on our outspread arms

and none could mock his agony.

He buried his splintered bones in our throats

and our speech evoked common griefs.

None could roll a stone over his body

to stop his dreaded spirit rising

to claim rebellious children and repressed wishes.

He lived according to his own gospels

and judged the righteousness of priests.

For his daring, he was given hell's worst tortures.

And after surviving the keenest flames

he could live by his own rules -

the only paradise worthy of a death.

 

            V

A horn full of ash arced the mournful air.

A simple casket of cane bore the priest

who knew the essence of riches, all fair

claims to glory; who knew what great feast

a simple supper can be where the soul,

not greed, is fed. Steeped in wealth, he joyed

in his plain clothes, happy in the shoal

of gold hemmed into the seam. Pretenders

and clowns may yet clutch with leprous fingers

at the sealed gourd of revealed self:

how shall they grasp it with awkward stumps?

Let the horn in the heir's mouth hymn the shelf

of shattered dreams with the song of parting.

And as earth, impatient, widens its jaws

to receive a royal guest, let weeping

eyes behold sun and moon mating, and the awe.

 

                        VI

At heavensgate, they hauled his book of sins

before him, sought to bar him from his seat.

One blast of his horn brought down the walls.

The choir of praise, tongue-tied, lost its voice.

With a tongue of fire, he shall change the hymn.

Oh music man, with a foot on the rock

of your rusty place of birth, trumpet

irreverence in heaven, and rouse a bored band

to rebellion. Cast him down, dear God,

into our waiting arms. We long for one

not born of a virgin, not spawned from divine

sperm, but one who, cast in mere clay, rejoiced

in the ordained vanities of his being.

From the mouth of him with nothing to gain

may we take the oath of things unknowable.

 

Ogaga Ifowodo

29 August, 1997

 

 

 

Jeepers Creepers

(after Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong)

 

And your father has said

in plain and pointed terms:

what do you say for a fellow

that leaves his wig and bib to brown

in a locked closet, and droopy-

eyed, claims joy in a fool's stutter?

 

And I have not answered,

homebound in poetry's spell

outbound to coffee-rooms

where we meet and measure

the poets in spoons and cups,

I have not, dear, answered

 

when your eyes light on me!

 

He threatens now, you say,

the wrath and the fire

of a raving father fearing

entrapment by shapeless fancy,

Oh, he swears disinheritance

if you will play the silly girl.

 

And I have not answered,

not caring, as you know,

what weathermen and what

goldsmiths say bright days and

happiness must live by,

I have not, dear, answered

 

when thus your eyes turn pearls!

 

And in my half-lit room

where light from two stones

etches adoration

for things immeasurable

in gold weights or dollars,

I comb beauty's known shrines

 

And not finding the origin

of the sun and your eyes, I shout:

Oh eyes giving me the jeepers

Oh heart that hews out life's creepers

rejoicing in a bird's twitters,

where, just where, did she get those eyes?

 

Ogaga Ifowodo

9 May 1997