Home Coming and Other Poems

Cry of Blood

I cry of mercy in the face of blood

Like begging urchins

And nothing but blood

And sour memories of lost relatives

My face is the signpost

Of b-ro-ken homes and carcasses

Of hopes still decaying

Shunned atop the brink of dusty roads

I am the tears and (glory) torn

The remnant of a land

In the hand of terror

I am a homeless pedestrian-

Wretched almajiris in Nigeria

Frail orphans in Sudan and Somalia, finding solace

Beneath the loft of motorway bridges

I am the dream of Africa

Perished on the Mediterranean Sea

On the course of survival.

Home Coming

    (for  'Laniyi)

I want to wing back home

To see my Mama again

Is the song of a travelling bird

Thrown away into a long distance

By the towering yearning of survival

I want to see my home

Is the desire of a feisty warrior

In a battle of victory

Home may not be as it was

The time of golden age might have gone

But I will go to that land

The sea might be billowing

But I must survive and cross the blizzard

I must not die the death

Of fish that never reaches the sea-depth

Smoke rises from the loft of hut

Fleeing its way beyond the taming air

But I want to rise above the smoke

I want to soar above the moon

Higher above the tower of blue sky

So I can have the sweet tales of distance

For the land that wombs my pride.

 How To Fly

Mother

You once told me I would soar

Above the outstretch eagle's energy

Could carry it but I have no wings

How do I then fly

And tour the firmament around

Without feathers in my arms

Like wild birds in forest?

I've been told I'm a stranger

In the game of flying

(They say) success is for those

Born with thousand stars in their finger

Or people with cowries in their palm

From the vineyard of gold-mongers

Now that I could see strands of grey

And still without move

Of my flight from the ground to the blue sky

Tell me when I will fly

Perhaps at forty, fifty, or fifty five

When my hair is full of grey

And my bone weak?

Fly is a word strange to the lexicon

Of people like me from the village

But since you said I will fly

I will one day.