DAY BREAK

Here and only now can I say this

Outside the dark enclave of your walls

It’s daybreak, look!

The sun frowns at us, for;

Too late into daylight we have woken.

Still in our nightdress.

Were you the cloud that blurred my sight?

The string that bound my wings?

The dew that wetted my feathers?

And the hemlock that numbed my senses?

Now, taste the blood of my injured heart

Embittered by humiliation,

And darkened by the long night of your bondage

Set me free for the flight to the mountain top

There! To embrace the warming smiles of the sun and

There, feel the good rays

That liberate the senses

She said:

Until you to me, are fast bound

I too am not free to set you free

For there’s freedom in bondage as

There is bondage in freedom

My life is not whole

Until you share it with me to the end.

Oh! Listen; listen to the rhythm of your raw blood,

Flow in me

Binding us closer than ever

And this is my greatest share of life and love.

Now set me free for the flight

For that’s my flight for liberation.

UNKNOTTING

Unknotting consciously,

The knot knotted unconsciously.

Unknotting with pains

This knot knotted with ease

‘ Cause it is of capillaries

Cemented with the bones

And tempered with blood.

Unbinding consciously,

The hearts bound unconsciously.

Unbinding can be bloody

‘Cause it is of fine string

Plastered with feelings

Strengthened with a binding barbed shaft

And tempered with tenderness

Yet unknotting and unbind must!

‘ Cause selves naked,

Woke into dawn

Detest light

Want to die, in the living world

But live in a dying one

Not dying the true death

But living in a false world.

Now the unknotting,

Cleave! Cut the capillaries

Tear the flesh. Break the bones

Deoxygenate the blood.

Now the unbinding!

To string, apply a hacksaw

To feelings, hemlock

And tenderness, incineration.

Ash to ash, no tears

 ‘Cause the valley is dry.

OGBA

Mother of many unmothered

Yet born and loved, I

Dream of you as I gaze

Dark as coal, yet worth of gold

Flowing ceaselessly is your milk.

Many mouths long ago you fed.

From far and wide their faces.

Varied as their thoughts. All,

Your tongue learnt still.

And this morning I come, my

Duty to perform. Again in

My trance I fell and behold: your

Foster children from your rich

Breast the milk of life suck,

Like a brigade of pigglings

Their mother-sow suck helpless

But patient you are, filling each to solid.

Your body guards, some in green

Like the army, others with sweet

Tunes, your praises pianoed

From pointed beaks.

Your sons age-long your generosity

Foresaw for like a monumental edifice

You dwell with your face unseen and

Your milk they live on.

Your sacredness allows no foul;

Organism big or small

Your age-long mothered ones to murder

And in their distant lands with tales

Of you, homage they pay.

IN MEMORIAM

O’! The unknown redeemer

As I long to see you awhile

My thoughts through the agony

Of your days pass.

This changes the air and my sphere

Becomes cloudy. Which saddens me the more

My limbs stiffen; but frozen or scorched

I know not.

Where is the heart so solid

That you build this chance on?

Is my question.  For a Mary

And Joseph you denied what

The eyes long to see. Oh, and the

Pour again

Only to redeem a soil so barren

And with your blood

More precious than the gold of mine

Did enrich.  But alas!

The toil is forlorn

The hungry dragons, the soil

Again have sucked bare.

Where might your burden

A permanent home have found itself

Unidentified?

Or did the beast and necessity

Deny it one? I dare go further for

The pour again.

May you thirty-months hell

Rot away and everlasting thirties of bliss

In heaven replace.

Father, may his soul

In eternal home of peace

Lay to rest – Amen.