THE PATRIOTISM OF THIS PEN

This pen is brief and its bleeding is tense Heighten and thick in his heart each blood With heavy force pumping in and out like flood Carry each mess into the yellow river Like a poet says, they still animate They can swallow them up with no potbelly Even chew them as kola with no ache tooth I am proud this pen still has thick veins To hold his ink not to burst but rush frequently On each miter between human and rights Wrong with human; human rights Still peep around the corner; a hide out of human wrong

The patriotism of this is not drunk of words But has wild ink and gush out wild words Like impatient blood from a slaughtered cow; this pen Is as hungry as those knives in abattoir His pride is the sharpness to pierce the heart of men And bring out these organisms of menace That hides in all our man, even the ones under our soil

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

PRAYER

LORD, GOD, mercy reside in your place
And the space you rented us here is dieing
This earth vicinity carries heavy burden
With bent back, craven bones break down half way
Blood could not fuel the heart to breathe properly
And doubt sway thought to the noise of mysteries

Around here: within our settled space
From the hill top of Arewa to the water home of the deltas
Around the space that divides the Olumo and its neighbors
Between the Niger River and its Benue relative
Where kneel bent equally to reverse a curse
Where heart supplicate for grain to grow in gold dust
Where eyes are shut not to see sin
Our hands rub mind together and plead
We want our black race to exceed a white race

We beg you, Lord, God
Open the door that link our apartment to you
And roll side to side this cloud like curtains
Let mercy find her way to us. Let her
Come like a Good Samaritan to wake up hope
On this bier of fainted heart, let her
Regardless of the spirit and those patches from fire-flies
Substitute night with multitude of dawn
And cheer us up with an attitude of a moon
Generous to kinds of mankind in their numbers

Let our laughter purify dark corridors
As hopeful as the smile of the moon
This burden will fall down to crush under foot Back will stand straight and right
Throat will flow wine like stream
Belly will deny hunger and bones will grow confident
And for the heart, blood will be surplus to finance breath
And thought will relate happily with no disgust.

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

WHITE GLASSES

In my country, not a mirror as it use to see
More than we can see those poxes on our face
Can see through the beats in the heart: beautiful or ugly
The days that are yet to be born, our longing
Craven calabash of a kind: crack and weak
But can still dip deep to bring out pure enthusiasm
Or can see through it?s whiteness of cassava flesh
The heart, the brown skin that preserves sanity
On this earth space of our own black paste
Not a mirror can see through
The blood pump to decide breath
Glittering in the eye like sparkling of star
To know what kind of precious stone lit to show path
Unto the earth a long desire from the sky

Not our medicated glasses with costly lenses
To correct what illness dizzy the eyes
Can see though the bold letters written on the heart page
Hope; desire, ambitions, dreams
That queue on the queue of heart paragraph
As the queue for the quick communion
By faith to blot out fate an accomplice of hate
Not of a shade glasses with black eyes
To express the fantasy of an arrogant beauty
Can see through words growing rapidly, in succession
Of one to another; persuading expectations with perseverance

Not even microscope, as proud as it is
Thought of itself as so deep in the eye
To see the heart of a ghost can see through
The destiny of nationhood, tiny like organisms
Wandering lifeless like a lost wind
That could not gain consciousness due to whirling
Promoting casualty, advancing crime and
Inventing corruptions to partner with fear
Not even this can see through the flesh in the heart
To sight from far, on the substance of expectation
And see widely the biggest words that pour honey on life

White glasses: colourless like water but the hope to eyes
Can see through the bottom of the waters
Clear, deep and pure these glasses will pierce our heart
To find this mustard seed of enthusiasm, and all
Perseverance to see the destiny of this land
Bright and orange, we can look eye to eye
With the sun: no blink, no break, and no weakness
But endurance will wait for the moon and stars
To pour kisses of light over darkness
To support the effort of fire-flies; patriotism
Will not stop to wear white glasses, here
Heart will not hate to wait
Not while we are still wearing these glasses of hope

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

Irapada

Irapada, because of you I have thrown my heart
Down the multitude of clean waters? If I would
With handful of detergent wash awash 'those dirt
Of fear, between the sacred courage that has wanted to
From the eye of my heart steer into the eye of the sun
To pierce in-between the differences of what life had brought for me
Perhaps, at the middle of those darkhood corridors
Before the magistrate of my heart, and my thought
In the dock. You have seated where life charges me
For heart-beat: such of a possessed, where I had wanted
Those fouls that carried me before the crowd of shame
To see you as a counsel for me, I have learn to hear you speak
Just as an oracle of redemption, before their God-father
I have learned to hear you speak, against fear, in your defensive tongue
As incantations learn to defend sacrifices before an oracle, truly
You can precede my victory on a war-front
Not with the blood of all my struggling that wanted to laugh
Neither should these be a funeral-burial for hope, but
With what I have heard of your name (the status
of your kind) do tells me you intercede.

Like you tied a red girdle
On your white feet-touch garment, round your waist
Before you, I kneeled
Before the eye of my possess, the bell of an aladura rings
Deep, wild to the root-hold
Of my possess, beside those rivers that could wash away
All short comings
Before the altar of courage, with those palm-frond on your hand
To beat down most heart-beat
That has possessed me, unto you I will love to lay them down
At your muddy feet to make them drown
Down and deep unto your perishing heart
As darkness use to die in the sun
Let me at the edge of your eye see them no more
Even on the seat
Of each thought that has ascended my heart, let them
Lost in the red sea of my heart
On their chariot and horses, even on their mighty foot
Let them stumble and die to their strength

From far, far from the lineage of their birth
Long by my fore fathers
I heard you could also come in Ofo (in the language of the gods)
In the presence of orunmila, the words you possessed
Possess me; beating my heart on those spirited words
That fell off your circumcised lips, as babalawo
Before those speechless testifiers that could neither hear
Or speak from their carved mouth, I had wanted you
To chew my fear like you do to those kolanuts
Before the gods, perhaps you can speak to your bones
To swell the heads of the gods, and in their strength
Speak wildly against my possess to upgrade my heart

Still on this queue of yours, I will rather wait patiently
Than to give up this debt to death, not even
In the pit of the grave, my blood will not die to breath
Until you as emissary of newness unto my dieing
Come with a chalice, filled with the communion of faith
And unto my heart, purge me with the kind of your name
Irapada, in a censer, squeeze in my fear like those handful of incense
Burn them in the shadow of their kinds, before me
Let the smoke before the eyes of my heart drive them
Out with their possessing spirit, in the kind of your name, Irapada

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

You mine for gold, share the jubilee!

Hey! Pretty Nigeria, you look charming
Your lips are glossy of raw glory; glimmering
And grow gladness of each fertile pledges
Just from the past, the tentacles of your lineage
A chronicle, chromatic and fluent like the tongue of a Miss World
Romance the audience, each life spent
Now hug a reach behind scene of past heroes
You mined for gold and we share the jubilee

At fifty, I cannot imagine what my eyes are seeing
Though you have some scars all over your body
And I have heard and read of the chains and weep
The white munitions and how they all sailed back to their ice
bloodless; not like some neighbour?s sweat
And tears that gushed blood, you know it a pride
You mined for gold and we share the jubilee

I know very well some illness still trouble you and you are sick
Some social bewitchment after you like an African bush baby
With the demon of craziness chasing democracy
Some sought of deceitful plotting
Conspire against you to extort your wealth
Eat your fortune and make you ill

But your pretty face tells me you get well soon
Our anger will learn from the cloud
And will not hold differences for long
Soon, she wears her calm and sweet face
And we share the cheers and make a toss
With a cup of orange juice
You mined for gold and we share the jubilee

Perhaps you can call me a sugary ink
I never mind any of your compliments
But I wish an honour of a virgin bride
To sprinkle over you pride of roses
And put on you a white linen of ancient Egypt
Wear you a ring from a gold region
And carry you on our shoulders
You mined for gold and we share the jubilee!

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

IFIHAN

I saw this through the mirror of time
Like the ancient cowries of an Ife priest
Scattered on a white cloth to pronounce
The name of an ancestor into the glory of the coming
Like an ancestral language to the destine of age
Inside the mirror
Not of the passing of a ghost through the shadows of children
Under the moonlight,
Coming to drive peace out of night
And to bring the slavery by fear
Under our roof fear that never wanted us
To look into our eyes. Not even
The roaring thunder that breaks the heart of the cloud
Which on several times when it comes with noise
Scream with lightering, and shock thought of
What terrible thing is it that has happen
To drop on our faith illness that will make us wander
And with no physician to cure, blood dries slowly

Our hope, I have not seen whirl- wind pouring sand
Into our eyes, neither is there any rude storm
Stumbling our strength
From this faceless mirror that appears to me
I pieced into it with my two longing eyes
Smile into my heart from a far look
Expectation calling us a name that bears all our pride

Democracy: like piece of gold given to a road side begger
Paint each walls of our country road with laughter
Of green colures that bring together all baskets
Full of glory: full of pride painted with green
Between those baskets walk on a bridges to peace
Of white colour, spilled all over our street
With each of its manifestation, I saw a home of
Democracy built by free and fair, together in equality
We lay down flowers and set drums beating
For a peace monarch, ruling for the people

By the people and to the people
I saw through this mirror festival of a new dawn
Remind me of a loyal friend; hope
To resurrect our dead pride and ascend unto the throne
This glory: our entire waiting a smile for us all.

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

AMIDST THESE APPRAISALS, GANI SLEEPS

If I were to describe you I will say
You are the mouthpiece of the gods; incantations
Swinging on the lips of a priest to justify
Acclaiming human rights generosity
Unto assault, with those sympathies
That squeezed out of your heart to drive out
Those possessive illness; illness by crown
Muscles or offices that cast shame
On our health, and tie hope to death

You are an Apostle of democracy
Who spread gospel for the people, by the people
And to the people gospel for freedom, justice
And equity precede your Ministry of humanity
Your democratic sermon had come eye to eye
With prosecution; as an oracle of chamber

Your warrior of words in their armor
Of defensive sentences still combat
Against warrior of society menace with verbal sword
And spear, you are the true son of my father
Black but pure inside, even with the struggling
To evict death from your man
You still travel hours and miles on thought
To send pleasantry to our shame (our very lapses)
And your pledge pay visit unto our rights

In this institute of infected policy
By policies you are a physician with prescription
By words travel on all the journals
With prescribed dictions as capsules
You have been the vessel of justice
And brimming in your eyes was the hope to see
Human rights in a priceless look
Of a paramount monarch come to take her place
ii
Not far from these previous verses
The lines have changed, the meters read
So fast, quick and frequent
Farewell succeeds appraisals; heart melt
To the hot heat of the shock, eyes sweat
Heighten and deep red, exclamations succeed another
Ah! At last Gani sleeps
As the sun does, his voice has set
Night has fallen on him, and
All is dark and empty in his eyes
The mission is through with him
Dust has taken his portion and breath back to Him

In heaven I wish your eyes still rise
To read the previous verses it was a farewell
Not to a book that consciously fell off the shelf
Fall down flat, torn and got blown by a rude storm
In piece, with no trace to even patch it
It was a farewell to those brave words
That spit out guilt on those faces of injustice
Slap corruption on the cheek and hit them hard
All on their chest; it was a farewell
To these words as high fever; hot bodies
Their messes could not contend with it
But shun it; deaf ears yet can hear

Though you know this cause with much cost
Yet you cannot evict this death from your man
A cross carrier of cells with curse
Maybe its time to go sleep and relieve yourself
Of these cells-curse with hard hit

I no very well that human rights is not an headache
But this cells-curse is a Hitler
Whether in the blood, skin or bowel
Wherever it is I never know
Perhaps it is night in your eyes
It is dark and empty I guess its bed time
So, good night and sleep well
Till we will see and not to die again

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

A NAME AFTER YOU; DADDY SOYINKA

When I come so close; in verses and lines
The language of your ink brim so high
As full as the cloud the mind of young pens
Look curiously in all manner of pen calling
To fit in your literary shoe of a sparkling noble pen
My dream of Wole Soyinka of our time; after you
I want to get an antonomasia, and
To add to all bridges of sweet roses
Seated at your feet; to all smiles
And pride invested in you by those inks
That have passionately drop on pretty papers

You have acclaimed
Words from the sun, moon, each stars
Even ink of white skins stretch forward
To your made low valley of all pen parables
From the race of black culture to white culture
Over the heart of the cloud your ink has spoken
Widely, and far reaching to the ones in the womb
They will know it, to the ones yet to know the womb
Written mightily by an interesting mind
Of many colours you proclaim your age

Of noble art, and recently
I have heard and seen your white hair
Young and still smart enough,
To read to me in all tones of your ink
Those smiling and crying verses
Pleading and consoling lines
Complex and consistence miters
In their stanzas charm the heart of this pen
Heightened like a secret tense to be name after you

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

WINGLESS BUTTERFLIES

These butterflies still humble to fate
At the foot hill green grasses they are masses
Tied to the brown grasses mess; the rust pasture
On this field offensive like those pesky insect
Poisonous to take the life of those sweet roses
Suck blood with crime infected nuzzles: A corrupted syndrome
A syphilis catch by kissing the system
Hit us hard and cut off wings, like whirl ? wind
Carrying disgust against trees, slash down leaves
Mindless but conscious; sanity could not pump blood
Veins becomes dried and lifeless, paralysis defeat pride
Green grasses still rust and wingless could not juggle up
As use, to befriend the wind up the high hills
And meet up with the early morning showers
To lose each kisses on the top hill pastures
To the foothill roses and fresh grasses; the coming offspring
I know this daybreak spirit still animate
The dew still has long life and wings will not bury this defeat
Our kisses are untied; this rust pasture will become green again
And these wingless butterflies will soon
Befriend the wind again to kiss those sweet roses

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye

SETTING A BANQUET

Let us set a banquet (to entertain each word
Within a conscience) as a guest
To sit among differences as a magistrate
If heart will set or words as dish
Not to coin talk with an aroma that got truth tasteless
With lips that whirl conscience to troublesome nightmares
But as an activist untie all words that have faced persecution
From misanthropist: Doubt that manhandle state or mood
With vibration on highway, potholes on the heart
Waiting to crossovers as pedestrian, even on the pit
Of those weak courage. Thought laid flat argument
In each space that passes through the heartbeat
Place where speech lives, speech that measure distance
Between a polygamist (doubt), and
A straighten heart that will take no trivial tools
By no means should we allow a polygamous thought
Hold on banquet like this

Where certainty is possibly to be our guest
And conscience to speak as justice
To guide pride by her constitution of a patriot
With no lavish cost of this honest feast
Let us vow to each words
To on this banquet carefully and faithfully
Drop them, slowly, down from those pegs of thought
Which have held us within most climax
Of touching from will to wall of it
The length of each phrase that has stretched out
Vividly, out from these board room
Inside of us let dine with words
And each to other settles for a meal
Certainty to as white as a fresh ghost
Pierce within tiny air and thick wind through each word
That whirls quietly inside of us
To on this banquet seeks hope and strength in conscience

Copyright © 2010 Deji Oladoye