For St. Peter's Perusal

 

For St. Peter's Perusal

(On the passing on of Czech Republic's benefactor Vaclav Havel and Korean dictator Kim Jong-il on 17th & 18th Dec. 2011, respectively)

Hell is hot, you must've heard, have you not!

Yes, barbarians there! That tunnel unto the oven!

Do-gooders here, you've done well - unto heaven!

For the choir, the calm and all you have sought.

Move please, The St. Peter is done with you.

 

Next batch, back to back, your papers please

Whose have we here for St. Peter's Perusal?

Kim Jong-il and Vaclav Havel!

Did they beget woe or did they preach peace?

Were their deeds well or were they ill?

Did they heal or did they kill?

Kim Jong-il, shall  you pass or shall you fail?

Vaclav Havel, shall we sicken or shall we marvel

When your papers here begin to tell?

 

Let's see, then who this Vaclav be:

A thespian? Aha! for vanity or for posterity?

From a theatrical production, came a Violet Revolution,

Under pressure non-violent, voila! The oppressors went!

Did he enlighten or did he deceive?

And president too - what truly did he achieve!

 

And who is this Jong-il, for real?

Is he like father or is he the real deal?

A Chairman? Aha! for vanity or for posterity?

Was his politburo polite or was it a bully?

On to the capitalist's face, did he do fit

For a man in his place, when he did spit?

Did ruler truly profit his subject,

or himself to the subject's neglect?

 

Very well!

Heaven does need a realist and an artist

As earth needs an explosion before long!

Aha! For you Vaclav, it is with heaven's theatre!

As for Kim-the dictator! Kneel thee here!

You did mean well, your papers so tell

But reigned too long, did you Kim Jong.

So, five Hail Marys and be done!

Just don't take too long!

The Literary-political junction: A Nigerian Black-Spot

 THE LITERARY-POLITICAL JUNCTION: A NIGERIAN BLACK-SPOT

There's a road in Nigeria

Narrow and twisty in this hilly area.

- the greedy man's road to riches,

The mad man's road to true madness,

The vain man's road to fame,

 yours too if  you've a wicked dream to chase,

Or a penchant for recklessness.

 

Yet every once in a while a man comes singing

Along a good path from the plains with plans

For the road.

But the junction is a jarring mess.

The man loses his music, soils his dress

Breaks his heart, disappoints his bones

Cracks his skull and denounces his own.

The nameless road twists his mind

Empties his soul into the wind.

Or sometimes a Ken Saro Wiwa's -

A thunderous rhythm that cracked the sky

And the sky wept;

On that sore spot where he last lay -

A mangled man, an icon born,

Stands an invisible signpost…BLACK SPOT

Here, Africa kills its sons.

 

Sometimes too, a Christopher Okigbo firing off

Poetry and bullets, valor and metaphor,

Freedom or death, from Biafra to heaven

That August of sixty seven.

 

But Achebe, aha! Lives still on a diet of proverbs.

In his diagnosis - "the Tumour in Nigeria"

Where fits the writer: The lab or the theatre? 

 

The scalpel on the table

Is not for the writer's hand;

the pen too needs a pair - as clean as able.

for when it gets dark in this land

The 'art of surgery' becomes a deadly metaphor 

A scene gory; like nothing you're ready for- 

The cutting, the slicing- all with danger fraught-

And, God! The practitioners, such a reckless lot.

 

Then only your pen can save us-

When heavens take leave of watch

And the skies are overcast with chaos

Political treachery and many evils such,

And the map besmirched in lunatic scrawl,

And we are lost in cyclic anarchy,

Then, the pen will point the route,

Back to the genesis, before snake and sin-

At the gates of Aden, pen will become a key

And behold, Aden delivered to us by a pen!

 

And once again, the poetry of praise, the critic of folly,

The constitution of future shall by pen be born-

By pen shall you bathe our past with clarity

Lest we forget! 

If you must walk unto the junction, Oduwole

Know this: an easy walk it shan't be

 

For whom the bullet races

 "Verily know thee-

That yours comes yet,

a date with a bullet:

On an unlikely evening,

an unsuspicious morning;

When impatience snaps like lightening"

The dog and the master

 The dog and the master

Today morning is the news

Of he who always had tread

With great clout these avenues

But now lies quite dead-

Gods of the night

 Gods of the night

Minutes thin towards the 0.00 hour

And sleep overwhelms,

flames are blown off wicks, the town snuggles for slumber.

A giant cloak of night descends to guard till dawn

Saints and robbers roost together.

FREE TO SAIL

 

Free to sail

When the storm of youth

Brewed inside me,

When the whirlwind of emotion

Entrapped us in folly-

The next scandal

 The next scandal

Am a Fan in a cage

Spinning in rage

fast, furious, frantic

I blast a stream of draught

In whose path sit signatories