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Chinedum Iregbu

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Africa Arise!
Imbecile Hood
African woman
Fallen Petals
Song across the land
Proverbs
Sallubuwa's dynasty
Adieu Ugochi
Execution chamber
Faded Roses

Africa Arise!

Arise Africa! Arise!
To the gnawing facts
That stood by your door step
Revealing the sordid past
With its revisitutional nature
Missed identity, lost dignity

Arise! Africa Arise!
To the truthful realization
Of your past, lost in shambles
Africa Arise! To justice and equity
Trnsparency and brotherliness
Honesty and sence of belonging
Africa Arise! Arise oh compatriots
To defend our motherland

Arise! Africa Arise!
To rebuild your fragile nature
Of ruptured social fabrics
To resist natures burst of fury
And entomb the sceptic waters of grief
To retrieve the true African culture
Of love, caring, sharing, peacefulness...
Arise! To the melange of African cuisine Achitectures of long enchantries Of peace embodiment.

Arise, Oh Africa!
To dethrone nascism
And break the neck apartheid
To say no to violence:
Intra- Inter communal or religious
Say no to purpoted slavery
Ancient and modern
Illegal diplomatic manouvers
Nasty, dirty, monstrous mind
Arise! To chase the scavengers away
From the coffers of your door
From the vegetations in your territory
From the boundaries of your land.
Arise! To leave their fiery cutlass
Of fury, petty killings and violence.
Arise! To clothe the exposed limbs
With quite unhappy concentration
To clothe the near nakedness
Of the daughters of eve that flaunts our eyes Burn out the lust and emissaries Of foreign nations Influencing our black nature

Arise Oh! Africa Arise!
To the clear sign of green vegetation
To the tom-tom sounds of the black race To the gigantic traditional delicacy And the natural scene that bids you Welcome.
Arise mother Africa, Arise!

Imbecile Hood

obsequise of ivory towers
mourning, wreaths & flowers
what a good terrible signal
approaching in tons of decimal
and scandals from cultism
drugs, victimisation & gansterism
who harrases who? a good
brandishing of imbecile hood.

African woman

African woman, ebony woman
A rose of Sharon, faint in love
Shielded with extreme emotion
Emotions of love and care
A lily of the valleys, how lovely
The why stand among thorns.

February of mankind, kind in mind.
Clothed in royal African lilac
Which compliments her black
Cute and luscious feminine nature
An embodiment of love and care
A vessel, which seeks modest living.

Rekindle the flame of love
Oh black daughters of eve
A love so desired is awakened
Am consummated with fantasies
And the obvious necessity of constraints At the mere sight of an African women.

In a high spiritual ecstasy, she moves
As the trumpets sounds the clarion to duty She flaunts herself to great house cores Evenly with un-disgusted fastness She's the mosaic and predictor of African legacy Even on dew filled moonlight night.

Charged with full - blooded tactics
The African woman solves problems
Hilariously and immaculately
Careful and watchful
Transparently and innocently without favors All with distressed concentration.

African woman, ebony woman
Factual, industrious accommodating
With a honey voice, a heart of gold
A.oh! Emissary of nature,
African woman of whose glad tidings
Am made a humble bearer.

Fallen Petals
to be screened as a short film

THE CONCEPT
The idea of waiting fro the government to do everything for the masses has eaten deep into the people as community work is no longer recognized. People become very lazy and endanger their lives in the process.

This is the story of a traumatized young girl whose family dies in the course of gully erosion and many people in the village lost their lives, farmlands, and houses. The village is in shamble, no food, no water, no road, no house, and no farmland. In the height of their suffering and trauma a youth on community work comes but they chase her Away saying she is one of the government people who have been ignoring them for a long time but the traumatized young girls tell the villagers that she is a messiah.

SYNOPSIS
The film open on blank screen where Sound of heavy down pour, thunder and a total sound of pandemonium dominate. Fathers, mothers, youths and children alike are calling out their loved ones. It sounds like fury, sounds of landslide and household appliances crashing with each other and then into water. Sound heightens and stops. SILENT: Gradually a sound of a million chirping insects dominates the whole ambience and is overshadowed by the croaking of toads and frogs.

IDOKO, a girl of 13 stands looking down the valley created by erosion. Standing where once stood their house. No sign of people in the whole village as Idoko is carried away with the view, lost in her thought. The whole area looks like a place struck by some plaque.

On a wide shot with a moody music tearing the air as the people chase the youth away. Idoko stops them and tell them that she is serving the nation. Clips of fallen and deserted school building and churches are revealed. After the tension the people agreed and work starts.

Pictures of young boys and girls gathering woods, sand, concretes, sacks and implements fills the screen in a fast movement and stops as the people gather at the erosion site. then The group starts hitting pegs into the earth, putting sand and concretes in sacks and uses them to block the erosion to prevent future occurrence and also clips of people constructing drainage systems, planting of trees and the job is over.

There is calm which is broken by the rumbling of thunder and heavy down pour, the group bath themselves as the rains drops signifying a new dawn. There is total tranquility as Idoko sits in front of her shack with some gift items placed just by the door and Oge looks at her for a while and moves off towards the planted trees. She sits rocking back and front and the tears that have become part of her could be seen rolling back into her eyes. From a distance, sounds of teaching, hymns in Latin and the popular amazing grace song could be heard consecutively.

CAPTION: "WITH COMMUNITY WORK/EFFORTS IN DEVELOPMENT, WE'LL LIVE IN A BETTER WORLD"

PRODUCTION NOTE
The film will have a sepia fill and local acapela songs will be used in driving down the message. The visual style will be in a fast pace rhythm and the mood will depict that of children forgotten by God. The small girl will always be in tears except at the last scene when the tear rolls up. The youth Corper will wear the face of new hope.

No much special effect will be made as the story is based on true life so the locations are already made. Special effects sound will help bring the reality of the film and this will be used judiciously with the help on local music.

The characters are every where so there will be no problem getting them and their costumes of the characters will depict their mood attach particular time they appear on screen.
My music choice will be subtle and a little moody to depict the tempo of the film draw the attention of the audience. Good ambience will also be of great relevance.

Song across the land

By the poolside they enjoy
The panegyric of wondering minstrels
And goes against the piecerate
They love to see us gripe
Over gari grains which scrolls
Up and down our embittered soured gorge
They boast of bounty-buttered bread
Cakes and deserts spiced with garrulous.

By the market side, we crack kernels
To make complete our morning dinner
With a torture that is underestimated
But their love luncheon and many left over Goes on as a delicate diplomatic issue With embonpoint to knead them inn Still no saving grace is spotted ?spits?
Only that we grimace
at their gluttonous garments.

Proverbs

the sleep of a reason breeds monsters
and all prayers end in Amen

the essence of true religion is righteousness but anger against a brother is felt in the flesh, and not in the bone never kill a man who says nothing because a debt may get moldy, but it never decays and books stand by itself and experience stands too still, the deity that people worship kills them and when the brothers fight to death, a stranger inherits their father's estate.

well! ours is ours, and mine is mine
but the eye is never harmed by sleep
and the rain does not recognize anyone as a friend; ...it drenches all equally and if you neglect the pot, it boils over and extinguishes the fire when a new saying gets to the land of empty men they lose their heads over it forgetting that its slowly..., ...slowly, that the hot soup is licked and that the dog that barks a lot hardly bites

words are honey,
but they never take the place of food
and if the corpse does not fill the grave, we cover what is left with earth and when an old woman hears the dance she knows very well, her old age deserts her, still it is curiosity that earned the monkey a bullet in the forehead and where the wine visits, there it shall stay well, blinding flashes of lightening means an impending storm "Let the smoke carry the point."
...will one shout when his tongue is cut off?
so a proverb about a tattered basket,
always makes a man in rags nervous
Let the grunt take over speech
he who has ears, let him hear!

the breadfruit which chooses to fall
on the day of festivity has not fallen early enough because a tsetse fly that perched on the scrotum must be chased away with extreme care even when its time to break the controversial coconut ...ignorance is just but the privilege of youth and alertness is the virtue of the old still the crab may swim across big and small rivers but it will eventually end up in an old woman's soup pot wisdom is like a goat skin bag, every man carries his own.
A bird is not beaten by the rain in its nest.
and if you see an udala fruit beside a mould of shit, pluck a leaf and cover the shit, then take your fruit.

but still, remember that...
...when a child eats a toad,
it kills his appetite for meat
Is it that Mgbeke does not know how to cut or that the blade was blunt He who eats palm kernels in the morning understands the language of famine The man who is murdered by his kinsman does not bleed still blood flows like a pool on the street songs might be sang in proverbs but its audience is usually auditioned i've served a plate of well cooked proverbs prepared for dinner in an open bouquet, just for all but the sleep of a reason breeds monsters and all prayers end in Amen

A dead person shall have all the sleep necessary still the fowl will dig out the blade that kills it and when sleep becomes enjoyable, we snore but the chicken frowns at the cooking pot, ignoring the knife that killed it...
the fronds of two adjoining palm trees abut and if a forest denies you firewood then, it has massaged your neck

"Talk the talk, walk the walk"
am only a messenger of peace
shouting from the deserts

the plate of well cooked proverbs is served in an open bouquet, just for all "Africans"
but the sleep of a reason breeds monsters and all prayers end in Amen My name is 'IRE-EGBU'
the sermon is preached!!!

SALLUBUWA'S DYNASTY

Walking along the fallen city walls
In the ancient empire of desert falls
The dynasty of the great square base
Drowned between certainty and haze
Near two century functional dying pit
But looks undaunted in high spirit
Walking along the walls of protection
Of the city that have long historical tradition And a great cultural heritage That has come of age Watching the colourful display of horsemanship Thinking of a trans-tribal relationship Galloping at high speed, stopping abruptly Capapied with humoured speech, speak gently Durbar! A colourful majestic way With a dainty little houri that looks gay Of paying homage to the highly respected United by ties of connubial, am so elated We reach a peaceful consonance But was spied in close distant vigilance Showing difference with style, decorum And moving around the still ancient emporium To espy the Batriys birds sanctuary Distracted by a sudden dusty cloudy flurry Now chased by insane Bayajida's descendants But was protected by numerous historic monuments Heard quit, ease off our minaret damsel Escape root still mysterious as a faintly dainty morsel Supported by the cadi of Sallubuwa's dynasty Who was stoned and mocked for noel sympathy

Walking along the pyramid city wall
Showing the Sallubuwa obeisance, I hail
From the peak of Dala hills across the palace To instance nobs (ghouls), quit, ease off violence And get delighted in peace So you won?t be hunt by genie and distraction.

ADIEU UGOCHI

As the hours of dusk draws closer
It's shady manifestation signals
Though, birds aren?t affably chanting.
Only that the crickets chirps
While the inhabitants remember domicile
Farmers and beast on revisit conduit seen.

As the distant diffuse emission
Of the setting sun fades away
And the aristocrat of shadows hoots
Midnight is fast drawing on
I couldn?t help but to thinks of you
Were you still at drill or tardy today?

As I observe the smokestack aglow with smolder Snails blistered amid its Armour I couldn?t facilitate hiking not your knees And the envied pigeons chat we split Looking at your vacant preside over At mums inferno situate When the air is crammed with a reek of tranquility Fret bedewed my guiltless facade, and my eyes Naive eyes, bedimmed with tears

Oh! Ugochi! What your sonsy verve meant To me and to us exclusively, sure!
Evil kaput our liaison
Thru? the horrors and nuisance
Of a neon eyed deity
That hastened your sunlight hours
And trampled the deluxe rose of the terra firma

The elders tried to ventilate you
But all pains no upshot acquiesce
What can a sunny youngster do then?
Full many gathered to no avail.
Away you go, partially energetic to drugs Didn't the anodyne converse?
Where are you to answer this question?

We mounted sentry beside the boulevard
The contributor to this episode
Waiting for your courteous homecoming
Which is by no means to be, no seat to sit, No groceries to munch, still all was forlorn The smokestack grows colder And the tom-tom sounds ceased The cloud became pregnant What providence would be when the cockcrows?
And I was made to forty winks lacking you

As the cockcrows at crack of dawn
Folded arms came commiseration
Since the earth is drenched with bereavement Oh what a melancholic juncture Could it be you primed sound For this expedition with the unknown But the manuals of living you discern not So why salsa with the rhythm of deaths tom-toms?

As the compass traces a comprehensive sphere So I traced approximately the neighborhood With a pit ?a-pat feet that frets
Ugoo--- oochi--- chi (stillness)
With mourning eyes countless head console Such a premature petal of insubstantial hibiscus A chaste juvenile rose with promising blossom Taken away by a scotching (neon eye) peccadillo

As you respire away in the drugs
Message aboard it came
Eyes sobbed, orifice wept the more
Deliberation so tart and mournfully crammed As scores of heads wept with distressed warmth O such a good stay, though so short

Tell me! What brand of voyage is it,
That you've embarked on,
Is it on ?migr? or what?
But you've done no off beam to be banished So where are you? So where are you?
You answered not, so I asked others
Where is Ugochi? I asked again & again
Mama said you would be back
People believed you are deceased
Is it a kind of tour?
If it's journey, is it to Zaria or Kaduna?
Procure gifts when coming
And extended, do not reside.

Like a Koel cooing from mango orchard
A mobile came to a screeching halt
And there was a slash about my door bulk Papa alighted from the room let Papa! Papa!! I shouted, ?Ugochi is dead?
My accent echoed like a split gong
But he articulated veto utterance
As the sky was murky and stern
It's a goal my peers shouted
And the skylark's warble was unheard of I have to depart daddy is back But doubtless without Ugochi O! A folio of optimism has fallen, but?

To the patch we went
With hoes wresting on my bear
Under the Ukpaka hierarchy that's shady Mama said, pointing at a plastered sludge With an inscription ?A leaf of hope has fallen An angel had gone too soon Adieu Ugochi?.
Happy was I on a gratifying demeanor
She's gotten a novel playing ground
With songs of eulogy on it, am so green-eyed.
I we'll play our orb of rags besides it And hound the honey buzzards mutually After enjoying mama's food and our pigeon chat.

But wait, where is Ugochi? I asked again Am too afraid to cross the streets Oh! Innocent girl of my mothers? nativity Who call's my name with bended lips Were you abandoned to the rhythm of death's tom-toms?
But you are held like a magnificent queen, Will you come back again?
I solitarily anticipate the boast of cocks When birds will chant again And the flora and faunas?
And shadows, which peter out at nighttime Will become my partner again in you're absence But I can't natters with shadows, He only imitates me Ugoo?. chi, I called out of my voice.
Eager for your gracious homecoming
?I stood to wonder if you would come back But then I realized the connotation of death.
The stroke that breaks the camels back
In the depth of my heart I wept
So you left without leaving a word for me? Goodbye, farewell, adieu Ugochi.

EXECUTION CHAMBER

Am so lonely even in my mother's womb
And I don't know how to pray
I've heard a name so sweet and pleasing Which gives me great joy, peace and hope You call that name Jesus Christ Am afraid I may not live to know him For in this my lonely death cell, your womb My tomb, dungeon and my execution chamber My soul will be murdered and ignored

I wish I could see the world
Even at the slightest glance
Before I will die
Before my murder-mother and her
Murderous and heartless abortist
Descend on me in the peace of her womb
Well, am so hale and hearty and most of all I wish I could live Oh! What a helpless foetus I pray that, that Jesus you called In the morn and at night could hear me For I learnt he is merciful and just And will save me from this execution Chamber, mummies tomb 'womb'.

FADED ROSES

Sounds of war chants
Trotting along like soldier ants
Along the long narrow valley
Oh war! In a thorny hill-like alley
Clanking, groaning, there's rattle
Then appeared a lull in the battle
Up and down the battlefield
Lay the dead and wounded in shield
But victory came with a terrible price
Overtly or covertly, there's no choice
But war! Oh war! Nobody wins in war
We might win one battle, but in war
Everybody losses, everybody losses
War doesn't worth it, it's faded roses.