HOME SONG: II

Expecting the arrival of a king, we have

been waiting in sun and rain staring at

the horizon for the stirring of a head.

Days have passed us standing, left

our hope stale despite cool winds

from new directions blowing our way.

Now we can care less about patience

but must reinforce our resolve

with the assurance of experienced messengers.

We while away months and years singing

to keep our spirits awake and active

so as to witness the spectacle many hope

will come with a massive flood of blood.

Several times the rule of succession

has been broken by strong hands

and none of the princes of the patriarch

can claim right of succession without a war.

That's been the bane of the land, sacrificing

so many contestants for the emergence

of one usurper after another - those with

the closest claim suffer imprisonment

or premature death from torture.

Still it's our custom to wait for the arrival

of a king whose dominion we built into a refuge

& with trembling hearts do not know whether

we'll be sacrificed to clear the way he will take

to step over skulls of those who lined

the way to his accession.

We cannot tell what the horizon hides from us

but which we expect anytime, cramped as we are,

standing at attention in sun and rain and with stiff necks.

 

 

 

HOME SONG: VIII

 

(for Tayo Olafioye)

 

And this for you, Tayo: the song

of the dancers revives their feet.

I revel in the dust of the open.

Here my feet rattle with rhythmic chant -

it's out here on the abused side of the world

that voices swell and swirl with every hurt

& the feet smacked on the soles by hardship

break barriers and surge despite stunted bodies.

There's another power that lifts the poor

and hurls them into a timbre avalanche.

The throat's sore from consolation of communal cohesion -

the singers and dancers in their business

forget meals that aren't there or stale leftovers,

but they will still get to tomorrow that defies divination.

Every fear or doubt shakes the body

of the song we must sing here all over again

in alleys beaten by native moonwalkers

and threatened by storms we soak in

because there are no homes not leaking.

Even a cry half-stifled deflects into a song

to rally disparaged hopes and groups

to regain muscles to bring back their flames.

Tayo, the world from here is unreal -

the suffering in a lost paradise can only be

to rebuild it out of rubble of broken dreams!

In this season of seeing what cannot be reached,

hearing what cannot be confirmed,

and taunted by a mirage of treasures still there,

I am fueled by double love to sing and dance

& call you to witness flowers of the home ground,

this love song I dance to amidst hollow stomachs,

porcupine skin covers, and insomniac dreams

of my ochre-coloured people who live
on the shaft-pointed edges of multiple hurt.