THE COMMANDER
He has passed along
The busy city streets
Unnoticed
He has milled in melees
And caught up in crazy sprees
Unnoticed
He has crossed crossroads
And rounded roundabouts
Unnoticed
He has ate from popular gate-ways
And drunk from popular joints
Unnoticed
He takes women
Like his brethren
He clads in simplicity
Like the jobless majority
He learns from ours
Like we do from his
He succumbs to joy and grief
Like we all cry and laugh.
Yet without and éclat
He has commandeered great
Minds with his rhyme delicacies
He has brought down great temples
He has commanded our susceptibilities
He has told us to laugh
And we have laughed
He has told us to cry
And we have cried
He has told us to hate
He has told us to love
And we have obeyed.
CALF – LOVE
Upon the green leafy roof
Upon the spying banana leaves
Upon the green relief
Juvenile love sprouts
In the imitation of parents
In an unknown span
In the air love flies
Yes, a child in born
From adventure they suspend
From innocence they ill
From mud to sand
They roll on anthill
Hope they’ll grow
Hope they’ll stop
Hope time will show
Them brother from chap
THE BILLET- DOUX
There’s this one
Who makes my heart cry
And makes my hair entwine
And renders my mouth dry
For a century now
I have been lost in slumber
Groping in the affectionate glow
Groping in the blindness stupor
I have cried out before
For a saviour if there were
When she’d stay no more
But I’ve steered clear
There may be more bland and blonde
There may be more beauteous
But this one is their grand
This blooming narcissus
This is your epistle
My begotten junoesque
To settle my muddle
To be here and play me off key
I know it’s the river
I know it’s the fields
But Prithee come over
We shall bathe and eat ourselves
Do I need to sit here
To swim in a yawning cup?
If with life I’ll drop
My heart like the stomach
Takes in without fill
Stock after stock
Yet I rove for more still
This I must tell you
My soul is ailing
And the sky is blue
The clouds aren’t collecting
Honey, listen to me
Prithee discard that fear
Gone has the other mummy
And the sky remains clear
Mother to child and me
This we won’t end, I promise
Stay in hot and cold
That we may suck the juice
Three of this is history
They are gone forever
Methink this one shall tarry
Forever and ever
Truly true my love
This one will last
I promise to only have you
All day, all night
Here I sign off
My back is aching
I die for some relief
And there’ll be no stopping.
SAINT CEDRIC CHURCH
At the church’s doorstep
The spirit of revelry
The nostalgic reflection
The distant reminiscence
Of yester night
Arrested me.
I looked to the south
Where stood the transept
I looked to the east
Where stood the altar
I traced my steps
Where stood the signpost
I sure, wasn’t lost.
I believed for the transfiguration
And surged forward
Into the transfigured club
Where were my fellow patrons?
Those whom I intended to disown
Those who I was running away from
I transfixed myself somewhere
Close to the rear door
Betwixt Satan and Lucifer
For they were all there
These whom I was running away from
These I easily recognized
The service miscarried
I couldn’t pretend any longer with them
These leopards under
The lambs’ gentle disguise
These who all stood in turn
To give praise to the one above.
STREET ARABS
We heard you talk about
It-all over the press. That
You intended to evict them
From their cradle. Then we
Saw you keep your WORD
What is it again
That took the gain
So hardly earned? No SOONER
Had they left than they
Returned. Is it your
Cruelty or their craftiness?
Is it the adaptation
Or the accommodation?
We are left to wonder whether
Indeed we shall ever have
Peaceful streets then those
Manifested by the befitting
Owners. We still wonder
Whether our splashed streets shall
Be complete without them
We dare imagine how
Lonely down-town side walks
Will be without
The occasional but usual
Smear of human dung
Or the silhouetted hands
That frisk out wallets.
