Tag Archives: Africa

In Case You Forgot

The makings of a supreme

Equals extreme conditioning

Empowered and confident

Black boy

Like a tug of war

Your face, snatched

Your pain, drank

Your death, sang

Your glow, rinsed

Extreme resilience, I must say

Micro waved out from the gutters

Envisioned

Predicted,

like the messiah

You are the clock

that keeps all ticking

You are the currency

that pulsates the market

From the turn of the southern belt

To the western lagoon of Lasgidi

You are the sun

From you, life exists

Light of the Land

What is heaven to you?

When you close your eyes?

What do you see?

I see peace in colors

I feel the breeze

I know God is speaking

Like the old Gold Coast

Nomads settled

In tribal beads

Future unknown

Yet praises touching the sky

Underneath, earth awakened early

Far from carnality

Technology in trees and birds

The sun telling time

Huts forming circle

Fire only a tool

Seeds sowing

Children harvesting

A heaven always close to my heart

 

 

Simple Moments // Addis Ababa Origins (i)

At night

Words come out easier

Hence, let me paint a moment

A sunny afternoon, it was

Stomach rumbling

Hunger, probably

No, definitely

Fast food or local grub?

Some ribs for the soul

Not vegan?

Personally, mentally

not there yet

Sitting there outside, beneath the shade

Munching like I’d smoked some green

Maybe?

Who knows?

Only I, of course

 

Reeling forward

Bite after bite, cave man style

Mango juice drinking, getting full

Spring season, sprinting by

There, caught in that second,

I see her, sight her

Her scent?

Too far, she was

Her, waiting for the 67 bus

Standing there, someone I must now

Her skin furnace shining,

Her beauty diamond demanding

Goddess, she is

Go talk to her?

What?

Me?

Yes!

We, my mind replies

Two minutes of gathering courage

Cleaned my act, face wiped away cowardice

Standing up, her view in front

Gradually, I pick up pace

The closer I approach

The further back my words run away

Up close now,

Lavender, subtle scent

Natural spring, somewhere in Addis Ababa

Shea butter, her scent I mean

She turns, my heart stops

Her eyes piercing mine, curious

Words

Words, where at thou?

Staring, she keeps

You hungry? I manage

What? She stares puzzled

Jesu Christi!

Yeah lunch, you hungry? I persevere

For a second,

her face brightens

Will you go away afterwards? She asks

Yes, I will definitely go away into space after a moment with you

More sunshine, her glow brightening………

 

Yeah at night

These simple moments come to mind faster

Although morning comes by rising, bird whistling

Another night,

Continuation maybe?

 

Belly of the Beast

African tales painted into motion canvasses
Black, red and bleak
Poverty, war and famine: usual suspects
all compacted into one long stretched out scene
Though,
I must yarn these swing reels
all ring out: hollow vessels

When surrounding a table,
under moonlit nights,
crime acts commenced
greedy monkeys and neck stretching ostriches sit and devise: revising.
Plans; schemes of
dividing the people’s wealth
hiding the people’s future
wringing puppets for decorated leaders
deep pockets, devil smiles:
going far beyond yonder
Their eyes full and brim with deceit
All staged, perfectly primed for a proper western lens
Though, somehow always missed by the Favreau’s

Yes, I gats yarn
Man must yarn
The world has moved, the jungle too
Black suited, the lions still roam and rule: white teeth glaring, baring
The world has picked up pace, the jungle also
Yet, we of the Africa lands are trapped,
held hostage to only show side-face: our death first

Black Inferno

Every one trying to touch the sun
Forgetting we are of the sun
Us: children of the black star
Gold skin holding diamond hearts

Pretoria Hill

I have looked in all the corners

of the world

hoping to see light

My ways always leading to no result.

Thinking I was lost to never

finding a reasoned path

To my home I returned: faithless

 

On the third day of the rising

When the sun had balanced

I walked up the hills, birds all around

Amidst the flowing clouds

There a tree rested

Its roots deeply intertwined with the soil

In its presence

I felt like a boy again

A child playing with the day

Knowing the night was for sleep

 

There the tree rested

My eyes with awakening saw

My soul with peace shined

Along with the flowers,

the wind moving from the south

brought me fresh warmth.

A warmth I could only dream of

 

There the tree rested

And there my life’s tale was retold

rooted strong with the sound of quiescence

 

I am here

I am here, said I

I have flown across the seas

Journeyed long for mercy

Across the borders and cliffs

Here I am, said I

Here with the flowers of life

Renewed with the rising of the sun

I am here

For where I land is where I am

Battle Cries of Lost Dogs

Dog tags of lost ones
Laying eternal in this
sand storm called Sahara
Buried tears, heated bones
As the wind blows high
Hear the dead howl back words
Revenge on their tongues
As they walk back on sand
“There is war,” they cry
“There is a war going on”

Cartoon and Cereal

“I woke up in the sitting room
Embodied in the frame of a child
Mind locked, eyes barely shifting
Looking at the TV with my lunch
Jumping with the looney tune on screen
Going wild, mind going berserk”

“Coyote!! Coyote!! Coyote!!” shouts the farm- boy

“Here comes those eyes that seek death
How many times can one die and not die?
Still this beast, this predator
Has forty lives, like a ghost
He keeps coming back
Running through the streets
With a grenade in hand
Seeking to break the neck of the sneaky one
But every time, the same ending awaited him”

“Running coyote, wilding coyote,
Why do you keep going on?” the farm boy asks

“Come to this place,” the coyote replies
“This place, this rat piece of shit keeps sending me to
Come see the hell that reigns here
Come see the blood of people that smears here
Thirst dripping in the eyes of the lost souls
Their tongues cut, controlled by the fork
Licking the sweat off the succubus
Their young ones recycled, their minds come out ‘loose’
Bottom of the food chain; these people of the jungle
Their teeth blended alongside death
So ask me again why I seek freedom,” says the running coyote

“Ask me again, and I may very well lick your bones dry, dear farm boy”

Third World Power

The place now called wastelands
by the those that hold wall streets
That place that birthed my soul
holds the only freedom I know of
Journeyed to the west, my name on free debts
Just by trying to live normal
The only option is to get rich, they say
Play around, connive and back stab
Free me judge,for in due time
My footprints will be back
on the soil of freedom
Third world? they ask
Mother Earth, I know

A Nigerian in Diaspora

I traveled to America to seek a better life

I had many reasons, but money was my number one priority

The only way forward in this place is the color green

I know that the road to good life demands hard work

I know where I came from

I will not forget my father’s last name

Don’t blame me for having survival instincts

Because “I no come yankee chop beans.”