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

Valley Down

The idea of my blackness only sunk in when I landed at the Dallas International Airport. The summer humidity was first to welcome me. It was unbelievable, stepping out from the air conditioned lobby into the bare intense heat. It felt like the melting heat was tugging at my skin, reminding, sucking away any trace of bodily fluid. This was different from the northern sun of Kaduna I was used to. This was the in your face type of sin in a way mirroring much of the attitude I was to receive later on.

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?

 

The Mandated African

From the time of my awaited arrival
Into the shores columbus claims
Into lucy’s palace, I flew
Built by foreigner’s red tears now calcified deep into hardened soil
Her land once resident to flowing milk and honey
Now full of flying paper-debts and glory billboards
Her rules quickly stamped on my skin, chipped and tracked inside tendons,
so I may never forget her emerald ways
Her scripted orders scrictly to follow
Blindly follow and you will never know
the underground makings of this gold-plated city spoon fed by
those in white tees submerged in brown border-crossed sweat
Follow blindly and your sold-out ignorance will temporarily save you from the fire that rages within these walls.

From the time of my arrival
Into lucy’s southern parts, I strolled
Then times: a lesson, for an unseasoned traveler
With my survival skills now tuned just right
Every loop hole, I must actively find
For lucy’s mandates were never meant
for the poor ones,
what more, a continental adventurer from
the so-called Ebola ridden lands
Here, even my buffalo’s siblings roll eyes when our souls jam
See I must find a way out, for me and others
Those others without a kobo to hold near
Those others who refuse to break bread with the judge himself
Those others who refuse to lay in bed with the devil’s bride

From the time of my arrival
to my survival revival, throughout my living, toiling, beneath lucy’s always glittering palace
I have found ways to keep my sanity;
methods that hold my faith of a united sahara
In these ways, I always seek courage on days when my spirit bar goes low
From my family’s strength filled by God’s light, or
good flowing rhythms that strike and fill soul
To a pen and spread out canvass
From these ways, I write out my own rules
Orders of a new way of surviving in lucy’s lands
Mandates meant for any African lost in the sea

Diasporan Blues

Another immigrant
washing away leftovers from plates
He might have flown over the seas
or she, across the harsh desert
Over and across, don’t matter
Tall fences blocking aliens away
Long stretched out rivers.

We are all the same,
uniquely shaded for the sun
We of the gun-shaped origins,
eyes all crisp with dimly lit hope
Look into these voided pupils
Past these migrated dreams
Through these walls of memories
where our dead loved ones lay still
There, we of the African beginnings are stricken to forever hymn
an ancestral continental song called
“another day to build and create.”