Poems

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

General Poems

    Political forest

    Upside down people

    Kuchicheb festival

    The lonely woman

    Foxes and prey

    Saharan beggar

    Maiduguri Monday market

    Guard at every door

    I ‘ve seen it

    Late brother

    The defeated priest

    The horrible tempest

    Lovely childhood

    River gamina

    The harmonica frogs

    My birth

    Our children season

    Silver spoon

    On my own

    Help me work

    The careless dreamer

    Monica’s lover

    When it all fade

    The trouble maker

    Germ in my blood.

CHAPTER TWO

Religious Poems

    The rough way

    The place of skull

    My rebirth

    Holiest of all

    My father

    I am finished

    The cloven tongue of flame

    Atoning lamb

    My goal

    The flame of fire

    Come Holy Spirit

    Tempest

    O ye Infidels

    Wisdom 

    What does God call you?

General Poems

WHEN IT ALL FADES

The weaver birds have left you!

Fretting like a giant ghost

Fleeing from a conjuror;

You that once held sway over

Your kindred;

Fear, honoured, flattered

And envy by all,

For the endless revelry in your palace

As you welcome new visitors

And bade farewell to old guest,

Amidst the flourishing sound of worship,

But now, only the withered fingers

Hanging loosely from your skeletal hands,

The thick bushy eyebrows which hide

Your wrinkled face,

And the feathers about you,

Are the only remains of your glorious past.

The gentlest wind that blows

Puts you in rage,

And makes you tell it

Over and over again

The ingratitude of it all.

THE TROUBLE MAKER

She had swallow a churn of lie

She must tell it.

She is full of self, deception and dead

She is pregnant with poison

She is a critics

She has been cheated by men of her caliber

         Tell her to see the clergy

          To give her the balm

          To cure her wound

          And suture the tears.

She is a restless cow with a wounded horn,

With too little tail to chase the flies.

A wounded liar with a horn of pride,

Cresting with ignorant of her tomorrow.

An old cow with plenty lover,

Lover for milk not for children

            Tell her to see the clergy

            To give her the balm

            To cure her wound

             And suture her tears

She is the little parrot with a sharp beak,

Make several noise and remember none.

She has a hanging heart and soon shall fall,

She has a venom and a venom giver.

She would bitter your liver and bitter your heart,

Beware of her she is on her way.

                 Tell her to see the clergy

                   To give her the balm

                   To cure her wound

                   And suture her tears

She is a wounded lion needed to be calm,

Neither with music nor the milking cares.

She needs a sacrifice of a friend so dear,

She needs to be love by someone who could bear,

To throw her whole yet wouldn’t be satisfy,

She is a bigot an ambitious woman.

                 In fact my sister

                 Meet the clergy

                 To have the balm

                 And cure your wound

                 And suture those tears

MONICA’S LOVER

You girls who cast your eyes about

   To catch a handsome man,

Come, hear the tale of Monica 

    And how her love began.

She stepped into a market place

   And held her head up high:

While other smile with down cast eyes,

   She stared above the sky.

She leveled her eyes above the place

   But sought no husband there:

‘Rather than marry one of you

   I’d shave off half my hair.’

‘I’d rather live in prison bonds

  Or rot inside my grave,

Than marry a single one of you,

   And live and die a slave’

Her father whipped her on the back,

   Her mother groans aloud,

Yet never a man Monica took,

    Monica was so proud.

But pride’s a sin old time will win,

   And walking through the town,

Monica saw a man so fine

    He might have worn a crown.

He might have sat upon a throne

    And ruled a live of men,

And he cast his eyes on Monica

    And she never looks up again.

She turned her eyes on the ground

    And a pace behind,

And wherever he went she followed him

    As if her eyes were blind.

She move with him as a shadow moves

    As a shadow pale and dim,

And if ever she raised her downcast eyes

    They rose to look at him

They asked the stranger for his name,

     But never a name gave he:

And all the word he ever spoke-

    ‘She’s a fool that follows me’.

The stranger strode from out the town

     Monica followed still,

Her father roared, her mother wept,

     Monica had her will.

The stranger strode the narrow paths,

      His stride was strong and free,

And all the words he ever spoke-

     ‘She is a fool that follows me.’

They came upon a legless man

   Who sat beside the ways,

 And he stopped before the legless man

    ‘There’s a debt that I must pay.’

He tore the leg off his trunk

    To give to the legless man:

‘Thanks for the loan of these your limbs,’

    The stranger then began-

‘A girl must pay to have her way

     And follow a man like me.’

Then he turned and smiled at his own dear love,

     And she wished that she were free.

She looked with fear at her husband dear,

    But she could not run for fright,

So she followed the man with the crippled stumps

   As he stumbled through the night.

They came upon an armless man

   Who sat beside the way,

And he stops before that armless man-

‘There’s debt that I must pay.’

He tore the arms from off his trunk

   To give to the armless man:

‘Thank for the loan of these your limbs,’

    The stranger began-

‘A girl who loves a legless man

    Won’t miss a pair of arms.’

And he turned and smiled at his own dear love

    Displaying all his charms.

She looked with fear at her husband dear,

    But she could not run for fright:

For better to go with one you know.

   Than back to the night

So he gave back the body of man

    That never had been his own:

He gave the heart out of his breast,

     He gave the tall backbone.

‘A girl who follows a handsome face

    Is as wise as any child.’

So the head rolled before the girl,

   And caught her eyes and smiled.

Soon we’ll be home my dearest love,

   And you shall share my bed.’

But proud Monica moaned and wept

   And wished that she were dead.

They came to a man, who had no face,

   Sat there beside the way

And he stops before that faceless man,

  And he gave his flesh away.

So now she knew her lover’s name

  No need had she to ask

On his narrow bed in the bitter earth,

   She performed her wifely task.

She lay in fear by that husband dear,

    For the bone has a cold embrace,

When life is done and beauty is gone

   In a cold and lonely place.

I assure you my tale is true,

   And was since time began;

If you cannot tell what is my mind,

   Perhaps your mothers can.

For love is like a pleasant flower

  To pluck before it’s grown,

But there are thorns in that burning bush,

   Will prick you to the bone.