A poem form my homeland

You who are my kinfolks
Who dwell on the land of my forefathers
Where the sun is draped in metaphysical hazes
And where yams speak of forgotten traditions.
Think not of what you see on television
But of the words I scribe to you
and if all of you listen carefully all of you will see
The truth drip from my words like blood.
My thirst has tasted what your hungry eyes
Can not witness beyond your fragile mind.
I have survived long enough to be a messenger
A bearer of bad news. A griot with stories
That will fill your sagging ears with grief.
You have wasted good palm wine and valuable time
celebrating and toasting to my good fortune.

I have become successful at existing as a prisoner
Of social lies and never ending wishful dreams.
I have eaten beans from a can dated a year ago.
I walk through streets scattered with dry bones
Where the young's cries of hunger are turned to icicles
Before their tears touches their evaporated cheeks.
As you continue to toast to my good fortune:
Never spending any of your days wondering
How can a devil's playground be any different from any other.
Realizing not, what my eyes have already feasted upon
As I push on, striving to find the street paved in gold.

Your ideas of American living are no more
Real than the images of a white Jesus Christ.
We have been tricked into believing in a land
No different than our own………………..
Where feuds turn endowments into burdens and blues.
Where soul snatchers masquerade through dark back alleys
Shedding the blood of future warriors in the name of liberty
And stomping fear into our bleeding hearts
To make us tremble at their vengeance of hating
What they don't have the balls to stand up and be.
So drink and celebrate no longer for my fortune
Of erected myths and fables around my swollen head.
I will soon flee. I shall return home to stand before my shrine
And meditate on ways to cleanse the path of the newcomers .

Copyright © 2008 Olutunde Olufemi

An invocation to orunmila

Tap-tap-tap – tap - tap-tap
It is with great pleasure
I call upon Orunmila through my Opon Ifa
Tap-tap – tap-tap - tap
Being of the great binary heavens
Please pour the powers of your spirit
into the world like libations
offered to those who came to pave the road for us
to walk the earth with good character.
Tap-tap-tap – tap tap-tap
It is I, Olutunde
who taps on his Opon Ifa
tap-tap – tap-tap-tap - tap
greeting the Orisha of destiny
at the earliest beauty of ray
with smiles and tears
as I look to the universe to pray.
Orunmila Baba Ifa
I ask for your ethereal voice
to speak to the souls of mankind
to empty glory into their hearts
and free them of their wretched minds.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap – tap-tap-tap
I summon the spirit of the white cloth,
the spirits of the sea and trees
to lead man down the crossroad
towards a life filled with the songs of glory and liberty.
Tap – tap-tap-tap – tap – tap – tap – tap
Mankind, let the gods hear your steady song
from the depths of your foul oppression,
then watch for the sun to shine above your head
as a sign of a rising new birth procession.
Tap – tap – tap – tap-tap-tap-tap – tap –tap
Orunmila Baba Ifa
So as my words end, may the miracles begin
to free the minds of miserable captured men
bound/chained/guarded with labors of sin
who have the desire and will power to be free again.

Ase\Ase\Ase O

Copyright © 2008 Olutunde Olufemi

Ode to apetebi

When the last sparkling ray
Of the sun cease to exist
And the last droplet of water
Quenches our dying thirst
I will remain holding
You comfortably in my arms
Flowing with the motions
Of our timeless rapture
From the top of my mountain
To the valley of bones below
In the web of our silence
In the midst of the eternal
shadows of what is called night
you will constantly hear
the ecstatic colors of my voice
proclaiming the cadence
of your fruitful breathe
imbues my world with charm
your dark lavender spirit
fills the chambers of my soul
with a music and laughter
that has stained my heart
with the joy of having you
affectionately in my arms.
For in holding you
I’ve found something
That death could never
Conqueror or attain
In the stillness of darkness
Where our love shines
so bright and beautifully
shimming from the celestial
peeping through a vitality
That is the workings of Immortals
Who rain meat for our pots
Grow bread for our table
pour water from the dry
Stone of the desert at their command
Powerfully transforming
What sustains them into us
Flooding our sacred lives
With a lamp the world blows upon

But can never put out
A flame that sits upon the horizon
Like the afternoon sun
In the zenith of twilight
Showing us the way into bliss
As our spiritual fire burns
With an extraterrestrial passion
That is so aquiline in essence
It proves without a doubt
This is the strength of love
alive and acting like nature itself

Copyright © 2008 Olutunde Olufemi