November 10th, 2008 by Chike Ofili

 

                                FELA’S

                                DEATHLESS DEATH

 

 

 

 

 

When Fela died…    Kole Ade-Odutola

The day refused our rope

as it sauntered to the abode of yesterday

with bowels filled with news

that wore sombre robes.

Our hornsman has played his last

and death now the harvest in our pouch.

The last will never be scribbled 

about the chief priest of Afrika shrine

who made music weapon and caustic lips

bullets from smoke-filled alter that blessed

dealers dressed as leaders. 

The echo brings back

International 

Tief

Tief

...and the winds deliver 

Army 

Arrangement 

in a country of paddy paddy political pregnancies

The day Fela died

lovers of prison chains in city jails

across the land, crossed from the present

into the past in search of tunes for deferred protests.

Suffering and smiling served the moment for miles

bringing to life the maestro who fought the lies

of state by stating our lives in immortal lines

49 sitting, 99 standing

Kole Ade Odutola the poetry author of The Poet Fled, The Poet, an art activist, teaches Yoruba at the University of Florida, Gainesville,USA.

Email:Kole2@yahoo.com

My tears       Adejo Idoko Momoh

 

My tears were forced out of my sockets

They looked like semicircles whose brims [lost theirs seams] {were an outpour}

Like dynamites in fresh explosion

Like a river whose currents [overpowered its shores] {forced water to overfill its shores}

 

I could feel the sudden explosion

My tears gushed out-side of my eyes, [on all] front, {middle even top}

I could feel tears like liquid from an evidently

Nourished hot spring

 

My tears were forming[foaming]

And like deltas, different channels were formed

Like a confluence all deltas became one

And the same grew- both in width and length

And it covered my face; it was large- extra large

The size of a river

 

The same parted in two

And the two became one

Without knowing where to go

They demanded to know their roots:

Where do we come from?

They viewed their source and asked

To where are we headed?

 

 

Adejoh Idoko Momoh [says he is] a two hundred level undergraduate of the prestigious Nasarawa State

University, Keffi” [when he turned in this poem]. Born in 1988, Adejoh hails from the middle belt region of Nigeria.

 

Heartbreak Hotel    Ismail Bala Garba

(Calling Elvis Presley for Fela Kuti)

 

Tears, tears

Left craters on my cheeks,

 

Waves of grief

Lashed onto my heart;

 

Was your smile

Up for grab?

 

Accepting the bonanza’s offer

I issued a blank cheque

 

But your goods

Sell on credit

(After our full day)

 

And I, a night

That needs light to strive

 

Rust in anguish

Without your voice.

 

 

Ismail Bala Garba is a lecturer in the Department of English and French, Bayero University, Kano.

Email:ibgarba@yahoo.co.uk

Why I Mourn Fela      Chike Ofili

(For Sola, Fela’s daughter)

 

For being a creator

I praise Fela

 

For the thought he gave his talent

The thorny path he trod and the truth he told

From the toils of his tunes…

 

I praise Fela!

 

Here in the womb of all these pilgrims

Along the arteries that lead to his home…

 

I mourn Fela!

 

Not for his ways with whores and whoredomy

Nor for the lore from his lofty loins

But as yoked lobes of the same kolanut

Before he chose the delta

 

And since we choose our choices

Pilgrims in search of a home, finding hamlets

Leaving huts, ending in roomlets, seeking a home

 

Yet every stop, every abode

Every rivulet, every streamlet

Points the way to our confluence

 

 

Note: From Chike Ofili’s Our Unspoken Ties, Reputations Consulting, 2001.

 

Chike Ofili, the editor of this collage of poetic biography,[says] he is a writer: poet, playwright, biographer and reviewer, the author of Our Unspoken Ties (2001) and an unpublished biography of Ambassador Segun Olusola: “A Bridge Across Divides”. This poem was written on August, 1997[8] at his Ketu- Lagos home.

Email: chikeofili@yahoo.com

 

 

Invocation     Benedictus C. Nwachukwu

 

The sombre mourning of the elephants

This day belongs to the thunder of decades past

 

History made without the bashing of iron

 

The day belongs to the thunder of decades past

The invocation of ash of decades past

Is the ritual we enact.

 

This day belongs to the thunder of decades past

The re-enactment of our baptismal promises

And the confirmation of our heroic existence

Is the ritual we enact.

 

As sure as an emerging entity,

This day belongs to the thunder of decades past.

When we sat in our homes.

 

To mourn elephants of the jungle

And to commemorate the struggle of the elephants

Whose ashes we invoke

 

Benedictus C. Nwachukwu [said he] sent in this poem as a Youth Corper at Government Day secondary School in Dange-Shuni, Sokoto, Nigeria, after graduating in English and Literary Studies from the Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria.

Email: piusofor@yahoo.com

 

 

 

The Republic    Dumbiri Frank Eboh

 

It stands till this day

Unswayed by the winds that uproot irokos

Defying storms that drowned times

Saying nay to death that snuffs out dreams.

It stands till this day

In every spirit

Ransoming itself

From the god of the day -

This stubborn Kalakuta.

 

 

Dumbiri Frank Eboh [says he] hails from Owa-Alero, Delta State, a Lagos based writer, journalist and social critic won the 2005 First Prize in the Impromptu Poetry contest of the Lagos Festival of Poetry by the ANA-Lagos. In 2007, he also won the Outstanding Achievement Award of the International Society of Poets, U.S.A.

 

Eboh has two coming collections of poems: “Cold Blood”, centred on victims of unresolved politically motivated killings  in Nigeria, and “Victim”on HIV/AID.

Email:ebogenius@yahoo.com