GBOBALO

Ye who took our names

Ye who refused to stay

Nor remain in the grave

But her womb torment and torment

Gbobalo ogbanje gbo kaaba don

Our anger will mark your faces

No more our cherished names

But naanyo ogbanje gbobalo

We’ll mourn you no more

You who refuse to stay long

On the land and in the grave

We’ll not spit

But our saliva lick

Our wells have dried up

Our pots are broken

Our tears they overflow

At your soul we’ll hoot and shoot

Or gather no more we because of you

We dig no more into the earth, you to lay

Into the evil forest go we, you to leave
For termites you to chew

Gbo kaaba don

Gbobalo ogbanje

May the head of the ram

Roll away your feet to leave

Into these dark shadows of no return

Where you once lived

 

Oh cruel spirits of Ogbanje

Of Gbobalo

Gbo kaaba don

Leave

We in peace.

We’ll live!

Leave

With your kola.

In peace we’ll live!

Leave

Drink the blood spill.

In peace we’ll live!

They have come like miners, all

All the water in us to drain

Stolen waters they still take

Even through the same outlet

Long after our pots are broken

Overflowing their tear drops.

You die and refuse to sleep

You who were born

You who refuse to live

Da yie, sleep yaawo jogban

Rest your energetic bodies

We have drawn our net

And our catch has been stale

Keepers of the underworld

Sleep not, rest not

Tie their restless souls

Hold with invisible chains

The unfailing strength

Ours is the well

Already drying up

Its water has dried deep

And our pots fit no more on our waiting heads

They overflow their broken parts

With tears they cannot contain

Spirits of Akokoshie we’ll not call

We refuse your sweet water

For our soul is bitter

Just a drop of your presence

Oh spirits of Ten tso

Receive our heartfelt gratitude

Your solidarity for the past week

Before we laid to rest

Those tireless same faces

Same body 

Same day

Our pots got broken.

MUCH TO DO ABOUT NOTHING

Long walks at night

Has killed and buried

Long lonely nights

With fanciful dreams

Only I could weave

An evening without a desert

Even water, left seats deserted

Friends did not come near

When lovers come here

Much to say to none

Much to do about nothing

Hands held fast to telephone

To seal the cracks between the pillars

Not with cement or sand

But frozen words fond memories

Memories which never got expressed

Even after the hand set was picked

My priorities not their interest

Only to rot and decay, abandoned they

At night would sleep in peace, they

At night would stay awake, I

A terrible noise within enclosed silence

Will wake me up again and again

Should I fall asleep again?

verses to remember

Many a dusty wind blew my way

To cover my white linen

Many my tear drop and itching, its passing

My sobbing, my sighing, so many

This never saw light of day

To leave effects unbearable today

In this memory distorted

In a smile my face will hide

A happy man for others, that I am

Indeed the good which therein lies

Scenes to reform my life

These fruits, soon alive to bloom

Fast my response will be

To close my eyes if another is fleeting

This lingering effect on me to reduce

Thus the legacy which it left

Along my drains so full it filled

Allowing not any to flow, freely at all times

A life satiated with blowing storms

A life bursting of collected deposits of impasse

A more affluent life to lead till the end of time

Weep but a little, oh worms in the sand

Leave your mind alert in all

To strike when it is hot

Lest, the bulk you’ll lose

Step at a time, at your pace

You must take, in all haste

Listen, lest you might miss another

Listen, not when down it weighs

Listen! That way, it lies ahead

Sound it on the roof top

Search it even on the path

Set it free, your lips, for the approaching ear

Be patient if it delays

Be perseverant in your wait

Anything is possible, even the little, regard it

It would not be like the world

What has been seen, heard, or done

But soon will be, go- man- go

On on you must go

On on it will go

On on to soon follow

Forget them not, especially her

Whose feet you often heard at your side

Should you be there and you hear no more

Forget not too, what came out

When your lips embraced their ear

Else like thorns in your flesh, your journey through

Like seeds scattered in a planted field

The crow high in the sky will search and dig

His search, try always to escape

Together they may dig and cover with earth

Their seed, their strength no more needed

When the sky, its gentle arrows descend

Each according to his strength

Each according to the soil, germinates

To taste sweet or bitter, its fruits

When the chickens finally come home to roost

May you be guiltless in their hoot

For the day is weary and darkness flaps its wings across the sky

Surely will return like a dog searching a prey

Will not forget its master’s door post

If even for years gone, to embrace

Fast about all, you could lie

Free in your mind, you would not hide

From reality weighing down on your neckline

laugh not at me

Laugh not at me

If u lie within the carved

And under mounted branches

Seeping falling rain

Running

flapping and flapping

As they lie down to flap and flap

Face to face, white and black

Their light dims and shines

White will fly through the green

Not knowing what more to settle on

Saturated by their pleasant sight

Of their petals

Dazed by a gentle irresistible suck of their sap

Flapping in the air they will flap

Not waving, else their heart will break 

Soon to see other butterflies

Landing on what has been restored

what i have for her

What I have for her

He has too if not more.

Look at my hands

Like what you left

The last time I hugged you.

Seeing those twinkling eyes

Entering speedily into their roots

Not like when you left

Only some few months passed

Only some hours away

Has indeed turned you away

" THE DRAEM ONE HAD"

One had the dream
Few were we in search this path
This light of the mind from afar.

In the mind of one
In the lips of few
In the ears of many
They gathered to hear
Surrounded to grow 
Taller, than the elephant grasses 

By your mercies oh gentle greens
Their dangling doubt 
Have you exposed;
Through your rewarding rays
As the dusty winds soak up their tears.

We climbed the mounts
We descended the vales
And trees, on top we lay.

Our bodies tired and worn out
Yet did we not diminish 
Our number; and
Our thirst and hunger 
Felt we no more.

Under this beam 
They cast their minds back:
Afar where the eyes cannot reach.

We are together again
Here we are to gain

It has been long a path;
A meandering, rugged and dusty path.

We walked not with legs
But a talk
We walked not with their talk
But the talk

We are together again 
We are together at last
To walk the talk.