Writer’s Lamentation

All prayers said and psalms read, spirits of long gone writers who fed our souls led us. It is time now for creators of images to depart into the universe of light leaving the body of works behind. But just before the leave taking is effected, can I slip in just a word or two for wondering souls who may come in contact with thoughts in rotten syntax, words without bite, un-sweetened broth that you critics have refused to taste.

As we await the blessings from our prayers let me confess that none of the words served with colorful jackets were written in haste, each recorded a slice of fate, a frame in a long sequence of events. The lens filtered out the physical violence and left within its covers flowers of hate that grew in love. Never mind if you can’t connect with the lightness in craft, maybe the labyrinth of contorted thoughts is art that receives your own attention. I toyed with the idea of complexity but twisted I became and had to return to the drivel that presents itself without shame.

At the town criers’ conference, we the unread, un-reviewed sent strong words to the market place. We erected a stall of judgment for criers without towns, for dancers without gowns, for tons of unexamined thoughts still battling to find the right borders of birth. The world is for all and the center stage we are set to play as well.

How do we price the practice of town crying when the gongs we sound are mental constructions? Does the fun to the mental not become fundamental?

Silence, silence has become the shelter of trials. Friends no more stop by our stall to speak their minds. They have joined the company of those we seek to change. Let it be known that the message we bear must not burst our throats, spirits un-contained handed our strength of voice to us. How hard it becomes when failure makes a visit and duty trails behind hidden lines begging for meaning.

At the town criers’ conference, our new spokesman bicycles our thoughts, the spokes are new, the seat well fixed awaiting the silent reviewers that turn attention. Why will this critics ride only with the famous and articulate? We know it takes longer to penetrate the Savannah of words like dearth of king’s craftsmen where horses ride their owners and roads like rings go from nowhere to the center of unknown.

Let those who wish send their considered opinions to the bearded writer who wrote the communique below:

A bearded writer

invades our dream

begging for bearing

to thoughts we shared

on global commons.

Ogun in seven parts

replicates in the G7

without their knowledge.

The carnage on the paths

of history traces its roots

to the revolution of machines

with dreams of power

on motherboards of illusion

The gun powder

un-balances the forces

reducing choices

creating loses

sucking surpluses

from nations not yet Nations

Ogun in seven parts

takes new sacrifices from cross-roads

crossing boundaries with motherboards

buried in binary bytes and bits

like Orunmila’s opele ifa

feeding faithfuls with facts

for the future.

The bearded writer with multiple

plans find a bearing in silence

crippled by silence

as a new gong grows a handle.

Ifa Agboniregun

The knower and the known,

the sower of words that breeds

fruits of now and the future.

Let our words feature on the critics plate

Let our flame burn beyond

scrolls on which we write

Let our dreams scream headlines

in the confluence of ideas