THEIR SOPHISTRY
The flowing cassocks notwithstanding
Taint hallmark beclouds the flesh
And the blood tilts where it tilts
Oblivious of stern creeds and moral codes
These shuffling dames tickle the laity too
And within the wink and the lay
God’s kingdom may multiply And
doting babes are whelped
Why this crucifix on the preacher?
As if the difference lies not only
On
the cassocks, collars and quaint sermons
The sighs of gentle inspiration
Manifesting the preacher’s ministration
But the blood tilts where it tilts
So the priest’s romance with the creeds
Spurs spiritual professionalism.
And thus salient reverence
In
the assumed wining and dinning
With His invisible presence about
That siblings accord him inestimable pediatrician
Upon whose ministration, chants and prayers
The ebb-man’s ill-fortune
Or conscious stirs and blitz
Might
be redressed as thus decreed
Till the preacher’s blood tilts
And strays where Lucifer’s throne lies
Who
annexes his cutlass
While the gaping league marvels.
ODE TO LEGBEN
May I call upon the muse
Angelic Seraph attendant on creativity
Which Milton doted on
Add construed too by Shakespeare:
That spur in inclination
Manifesting from tranquilled rumination
Compelling unexplored capability
Whose reservoir is the intellect
The
whirl in mental sojourn
Unleashes the indiscernible
As
the devotion lasts:
Quaint visitation inhabiting the mind
What other mansion than this
May the muse inhabit!
My other muse be physical
She in that eternal submission Compelled
an unyielding breath
LEGBEN, moulder of perverse mould
The stump in eclipse that sprouted an oak
The rebellious, iconoclast known to time
Further spur she gestates
And
that readiness to yield
To the chagrin of brothers and all
Whose wicked desires were nipped
TO
LEGBEN be this muse
The prime motivation to enforce a legacy
She yields
That her bits of fingers might thrive
Was
LEGBEN’s spur wrought by love
Or a mere accomplice in nature’s pranks?
In this quest for artistic rejuvenation
Known to different ages but in specks
Through Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
Prime movers of rational postulations
The heavens or nature conditioned her
In that mindless
submission
That her ebbing-son might be
To dish saner rules and virtues
To perverts inhabiting the climes
While she relishes above with the divine
In that inimitable satisfaction
As her unqualified being littered a genius
If
love you dress with loose-robes
Sentimental qualifications or peerless anecdotes
May the ensuing joy last beyond your shadow
Which demise comes at dusk
And except cooked up illumination be about
The
fancied –joy might crumble like the shade
That love engenders in its tumultuous leap
Characteristic of an indiscreet jumper
Who attempts to fly upon a slippery path
May such tasks be laced with unfettered bliss
The aching taunt of love is momentary
Like the flimsy joy, insubstantial
Love’s nakedness isn’t in doubt
And its joy faintly filters unseen
And into tears assume before the dawn.
May she never undue tears sheds
For all shall quit
Both saints and sinners
Let meet labour be accomplished
LEGBEN to whom I unhand the baton of creativity
She whose feature exonerates me, and my nudity covers
My sprouting blood and flowering bone
Whose essence, sight and tears tickle me
Upon accidental meetings when yet a lass
That her alarmed sight instilled in me
Or sometimes upon a dreaming session
Bedeviled by quaint fantasy
Or as her mum unleashed fatal missiles
The rod she took herself in stout defense
TO
LEGBEN be this muse.
SONG OF A POET
Nature dishes her favours in parables
That what a man of wealth savours
The poet shuns and winks not dismissing
To groom his vision and whet his pen
Qualified satiation she dishes to him
That his ink might flow
And
his books inured
Amid raging dearth and stern demeanour adorned
While about his business, like a bird in flight
Whirling around known paths and strange lawns
Intent on harnessing related values
That may delight like minds
As these crooks pursue
Fatal wealth that props their end
Great creativity bedecks his pen
And known values are strung
That decomposing carcasses may engender
Better values, unknown to time
Such furors become attainable creative grains
That the careful thinker may motivate
Or infuriate him as he wages potent war
On society’s socio-economic fabrics
Those values considered stencrosant
May seem pervert’s peculiar stench, taint and idiocy
Which he attempts to rubbish
As his prying soul may condition:
A wrestle with the coagulating sensibility
Reminiscent of a rebel and his mutiny
Were it possible to stay awake
And on this table record oozing thought
Or from gladdening jests or boozing spree abstain?
Sometimes gallivanting in search of sleek dames,
That every leaping minute insures my talent
What wondrous ink might be spilt!
What thunderous bang my sighs might assume
May these songs never degenerate!
TRAPPINS OF THE FLOTSAM…
Let me about the path of controversy
As I relish in my stench
Oblivious of prowling apostles of Hood
Stern Robin wrapped in controversy
These swine calling for both blood and quid
I thus may celebrate the abysmal well
Untainted mine engendered by poverty
Where bliss has his harbour
And
blitz never my labour
That great sovereign diminishes pride
That
neither feigning friends peter their shoes
Nor envious folks their wrath stirs
As
they pant in their anticipated favour
And within their filial lack salivate
May plenty never beckon
On angry mob, desirous of a leveler Or
these frownsters adorning vacant bellies
Anxious ever to unleash their malice
And visit visible dearth on the cupidous Upon
the flaunt of inimitable wealth
As the cruise in Cadillac around the ghetto
May touch the chagrin sensibilities of lean hearts
That wealth assumes an anathema
Where absolute satiation should reign
Possession motivates the greedy heart
To
pursue further lucre beyond his reach
Where upon seraphic contentment flies
And seeks greener habitation in pastoralism
Such
rules as might city dwellers reform
Are better seized dwelling with the swine
And the pigsties relate salient references
The tablets inscribed with civilized demeanours
These cosmopolitan ethics, bread of gregariousness
May I never shun such bins
The
liquor of inexplicable rumination
As if the pigs tell not better stories
Indecipherable to the rich-poor in cities
Such isolation bred Gustave Proud
Flaubert madly insane
Whose seclusion fashioned potent axioms
Uncommon to man even when portrayed
Such kinds becloud rich dwellers
Whose contempt is on the flotsam…
MAN OF PASSAGE
Ode-Irele: wait here I come
To the beauty and green lore
The unencumbered air,
Boundless
beauty and limitless joy
How often comes this call
The hooting music of country owls Attracting
spiritual yearning
To taste midnight pudding
My being lies there
The
irrigable leeway my breath requires
To circumvent the wiles of assailants
Through rites, libations and uncanny meals
At times the attentive devotion is in flight
And wholesome moon in gossiping reveled!
That the thought of letter appalled me
And
these swine-friends often visited
Sometimes talking over gin
Often attended by the breaking of kola
In utter veneration of benevolent gods
So arrives the wedding train
As it chants melodies of matrimony
Right from the altar Where
Kenny signed off his freedom
In obvious exchange for matrimonial blitz
That perennial stigma attendant on marriage
Perhaps
the occasional well of comfort
Might be ample compensation
For domestic ripples and filial squabbles
As
the fantasy is soon outlived
When the blushing blood cools off
In deference to the weather
My itching soul longs to go
There where serenity beclouds the sigh
But there, Ode-Irele, lies my essence The
true rites to my unencumbered existence
No it isn’t fresh, death prowls the streets
The eternal boat gathers its unsuspecting crew
About the cruise, immortal link to Hade
Where the spent-struggler submits all
Oblivious of present cares and stirs
What then is death, but the link
Between uneventful living and celestial exposition
Rejuvenated with every death and birth
By which the living, like Prometheus
Steals vital ritual items from beyond
To enhance the world and thus paradisiacal
In obvious negation of divine wiles
To perpetually mortgage man
And thus serviceable to superstitions.
