Digging up the Dreams - Poems by Adeola Ikuomola
- By Adeola Ikuomola
- Published August 21, 2010
- Poetry
-
Rating:
TERMITES IN THE FLOWERBED
The sight of our departed heroes’ footprints
Glittering on the golden plaque of the seasons
Compelled our fresh search for selfless shepherds
To lead us right into yet a better time and season.
They came like raw gold swimming in the furnace
And sang like songbirds bouncing in the clouds
Oh, the sun rejoiced at their angelic appearance
The moon and the stars desired their feigned glory.
We tendered our hearts as a red carpet before them
And ushered them into our golden national flowerbed
To learn from the scrolls of our creative past heroes
The excellent articles of selfless leadership and governance
The destructive termites terminated our expectations
And violated the sacred scrolls of our great heroes past
And cast upon our wearied national shoulder blades
The triple yoke of ethnicity, theocracy and corruption
They twist our mother tongues and ruin our brotherhood
They spill our innocent blood for the gods of their making
They sprinted away our gold in exchange for pure poverty
Their bright days get brighter and our dark nights get darker.
DIGGING UP THE DREAMS
The sky was a wearied shepherd in the cave of gloom
The black thunderclouds were recalcitrant elephants
Raging furiously on the monumental mountain range
Protesting over the rumoured imminent resurrection
Of the conquering glory of the redeeming sharp sun rays
Lightning hurled the fragile time bomb across the sky
A crash, a bang and a roar crippled the lanky landlords
The mortally wounded walls groaned, cursed and crashed
Over the sharp floods that devoured the vast landmarks
Like famished dogs feasting on delicious thighbones
The downtrodden brooks roared like seven thunders
The numerical murmur of the galloping snowy waterfalls
Enriched the harmonious heartbeat of the kettle drum
The wailing waves were tired troops of travailing timbers
Herded hysterically towards the monolingual sawmill
The victorious sunrays are potent poets’ prime pen pals
Digging up the golden dreams buried in the cold rooms
Within the footfalls on the foot mats under the foot stools
The global altar smells of the genius’ refreshing midnight oil
The balmy eternal tempo of the watchful creative heart beats
ECHOES OF BLOOD
From the kneecap of the crawling sea
To the foreskin of the drumming clouds
The keen echoes of the innocent blood
Flow from the late hearts to the early hands.
The innocent blood is a fair butterfly
On the glowing flowers freshly spread
On the dew-encapsulated eastern fields
Beneath the young and virile sunrays.
The rib cages and chunks of fresh skulls
In the forest of the bristle of butterflies
And the gales of laughing bald vultures
Echo the innocently spilled blood.
From the blubbering eastern cemeteries
Groaning beneath withered wreaths
The thunderous echoes of fresh blood
I hear saying man is better than lions.
LOOKING FOR THE TICKET
They turned the nation upside down looking for the ticket
They found it and turned the nation to a very thick thicket
They tied our necks to their horses and turned them loose
They celebrated their gains and the liberty we had to lose
They turned the treasury upside down looking for raw gold
They found it and turned the treasury to a planet born cold
They tied our appetite to the scarce crumbs in their old bins
They documented our losses with lunch full of sandy beans
They plucked our promising children from our maternal arms
They overfed them with strange breast milk served with arms
They let them loose like hungry wolves to uproot our dreams
They came and transplanted our homes into the cold streams
They came amidst trumpets and drums for a golden carnival
They exhibited the razor-sharp dentition of a furious cannibal
They turned the nation upside down looking for our high hope
They found, desecrated and tied it to their fragile political rope
Our daughters are their cargoes and our fathers their wagons
They spit fire and speak in strange tongues laced with jargons
We look up to the hill from where comes the old time prophet
That he might speak for us like an ordained heavenly trumpet
THE TOWN CRIER
The spayed light bleeds for internal peace
The castrated atmosphere thirsts for love
And the assaulted clouds travail for unity.
The gagged rainfalls sing for democracy
The shackled east wind claps for amnesty
And the maimed floods sprint for integrity.
The moon mourns our national miscarriages
The stars lament over the regional stillbirths
And the sun sighs for local infant mortality.
Now mark the accursed bloodthirsty serpents
Their sharp fangs flare in our bone marrow
Threatening our fragile national spinal cords
DANGER
Yesterday was a furious lion
Today is a famished serpent
Tomorrow is a thirsty vampire
The storm is gathering fast
The tides are frighteningly high
The wind speaks in tongues of hell
The hawks will scale the clouds
The forest will embrace the lions
The sea will hoard the sharks
And you snow hearted lambs
Herded towards the abattoir
Behold Jesus Christ your eternal lover
THE LAND OF MY BIRTH
The land of my birth
The land of my fathers
Your thorny fingers
Hurl my soul to hell
Your wind wearies me
Your storm stones me
Your sun scorches me
Your stars slap me.
I am a weeping star
In a bleeding night
Awaiting your golden arms
To embrace my damped soul.
The land of my birth
The land of my mothers
Oh dearest land of my fathers
Where is your moonlight song.
(c) Adeola Ikuomola
The sight of our departed heroes’ footprints
Glittering on the golden plaque of the seasons
Compelled our fresh search for selfless shepherds
To lead us right into yet a better time and season.
They came like raw gold swimming in the furnace
And sang like songbirds bouncing in the clouds
Oh, the sun rejoiced at their angelic appearance
The moon and the stars desired their feigned glory.
We tendered our hearts as a red carpet before them
And ushered them into our golden national flowerbed
To learn from the scrolls of our creative past heroes
The excellent articles of selfless leadership and governance
The destructive termites terminated our expectations
And violated the sacred scrolls of our great heroes past
And cast upon our wearied national shoulder blades
The triple yoke of ethnicity, theocracy and corruption
They twist our mother tongues and ruin our brotherhood
They spill our innocent blood for the gods of their making
They sprinted away our gold in exchange for pure poverty
Their bright days get brighter and our dark nights get darker.
DIGGING UP THE DREAMS
The sky was a wearied shepherd in the cave of gloom
The black thunderclouds were recalcitrant elephants
Raging furiously on the monumental mountain range
Protesting over the rumoured imminent resurrection
Of the conquering glory of the redeeming sharp sun rays
Lightning hurled the fragile time bomb across the sky
A crash, a bang and a roar crippled the lanky landlords
The mortally wounded walls groaned, cursed and crashed
Over the sharp floods that devoured the vast landmarks
Like famished dogs feasting on delicious thighbones
The downtrodden brooks roared like seven thunders
The numerical murmur of the galloping snowy waterfalls
Enriched the harmonious heartbeat of the kettle drum
The wailing waves were tired troops of travailing timbers
Herded hysterically towards the monolingual sawmill
The victorious sunrays are potent poets’ prime pen pals
Digging up the golden dreams buried in the cold rooms
Within the footfalls on the foot mats under the foot stools
The global altar smells of the genius’ refreshing midnight oil
The balmy eternal tempo of the watchful creative heart beats
ECHOES OF BLOOD
From the kneecap of the crawling sea
To the foreskin of the drumming clouds
The keen echoes of the innocent blood
Flow from the late hearts to the early hands.
The innocent blood is a fair butterfly
On the glowing flowers freshly spread
On the dew-encapsulated eastern fields
Beneath the young and virile sunrays.
The rib cages and chunks of fresh skulls
In the forest of the bristle of butterflies
And the gales of laughing bald vultures
Echo the innocently spilled blood.
From the blubbering eastern cemeteries
Groaning beneath withered wreaths
The thunderous echoes of fresh blood
I hear saying man is better than lions.
LOOKING FOR THE TICKET
They turned the nation upside down looking for the ticket
They found it and turned the nation to a very thick thicket
They tied our necks to their horses and turned them loose
They celebrated their gains and the liberty we had to lose
They turned the treasury upside down looking for raw gold
They found it and turned the treasury to a planet born cold
They tied our appetite to the scarce crumbs in their old bins
They documented our losses with lunch full of sandy beans
They plucked our promising children from our maternal arms
They overfed them with strange breast milk served with arms
They let them loose like hungry wolves to uproot our dreams
They came and transplanted our homes into the cold streams
They came amidst trumpets and drums for a golden carnival
They exhibited the razor-sharp dentition of a furious cannibal
They turned the nation upside down looking for our high hope
They found, desecrated and tied it to their fragile political rope
Our daughters are their cargoes and our fathers their wagons
They spit fire and speak in strange tongues laced with jargons
We look up to the hill from where comes the old time prophet
That he might speak for us like an ordained heavenly trumpet
THE TOWN CRIER
The spayed light bleeds for internal peace
The castrated atmosphere thirsts for love
And the assaulted clouds travail for unity.
The gagged rainfalls sing for democracy
The shackled east wind claps for amnesty
And the maimed floods sprint for integrity.
The moon mourns our national miscarriages
The stars lament over the regional stillbirths
And the sun sighs for local infant mortality.
Now mark the accursed bloodthirsty serpents
Their sharp fangs flare in our bone marrow
Threatening our fragile national spinal cords
DANGER
Yesterday was a furious lion
Today is a famished serpent
Tomorrow is a thirsty vampire
The storm is gathering fast
The tides are frighteningly high
The wind speaks in tongues of hell
The hawks will scale the clouds
The forest will embrace the lions
The sea will hoard the sharks
And you snow hearted lambs
Herded towards the abattoir
Behold Jesus Christ your eternal lover
THE LAND OF MY BIRTH
The land of my birth
The land of my fathers
Your thorny fingers
Hurl my soul to hell
Your wind wearies me
Your storm stones me
Your sun scorches me
Your stars slap me.
I am a weeping star
In a bleeding night
Awaiting your golden arms
To embrace my damped soul.
The land of my birth
The land of my mothers
Oh dearest land of my fathers
Where is your moonlight song.
(c) Adeola Ikuomola