SINCE IT'S YOUR DAY

(FOR LEVA RASMUSSEN ON HER BIRTHDAY)

Since it’s your day
The day hallowed vagitamus said his say
Of acquiescence, you screeched a faint but gruff lisping
That initiated you into this world of time and fading
Realities, where you have to that tide of fortune find;
It’s God’s own temporal place for mankind.
Take these lines of love and immorality;
It endures and waxes till eternity.

Since it’s your day
The day you made no delay
But broke free from that natural encasement men
Call womb, to the trail of high achievers join-then
Like an oak tree, shed your acorns of kindness
on human; for it brings with it sufficient plentiness.
Take therefore, the poet’s offer that is at  all-times new
It defies time and space; yes even in God’s view.

LITANY IN HARD-TIMES

  
When noisome voices  of change like a pounding swell
Finally crested the land--'our own land,'
Splendors of hope beamed up with a solemn knell
Revealing the unfettered gaiety slain by our demand
Of bygone days; we revelled in joy so high and tall
But in time did they metamorphose to be the Saul
Prosecuting their foes. Now that the table is turned about
And the masses left in wanton doubt
        Lord, deliver us from their kiss of death!

Renascence of grizzled foxes dressed in angel's robes.
Obsessed with masqueraded will
And stately liss of cosied up boxes with kleptomaniac thobes
They labour to bargain away the last yam ungrill'd.
May those who feel and paint witty words
Have a field day--for sanity is maimed with no swords.
Ours is an open sore of timeless ridicule;
And even as vultures freely feed on remains unshackled,
       Lord, deliver us from their kiss of death!

Beleaguered by scourge of persistent hard times;
When the highest currency can scarce get them bread;
Youths turn to crimes for want of dimes
And school children without dread
Drop out daily for their mother's wares remained unsold.
Oh, how gag mouthed we watch while tendrils of good mold
Are seared by suckers of hardship before our very eyes!
And since they are stone-deaf to our piteous cries,
       Lord, deliver us from their kiss of death!

YOU LIFTED THE LAMP (For Wole Soyinka)

You lifted the lamp
High above the tower schemed to cramp
A mother’s value, her lores and her mores,
In the arms of Morpheus they strived to put or even some erase.
The seedling that will make the tendril cannot
Be truly guessed even amongst the lot
In the fructiferous womb of that “Ake daughter of Eve” 
Gestated one seed, fructescensed and by the world, with paean receive

You lift the lamp
That, upon her trading stamp,
Mirrored her timeless effulgence
Aye, it is your fervid feasance!
Life is labyrinth of choices
But you settled on those of immorality and voices.
And, amidst the gods, you enjoy a fair place;
To the formative knives, a counsel of the populace

You lifted the lamp
And just in time, with a boisterous clamp,
Combed the illusive chambers of their worth.
Within the strand of your hair, artful crafts are called forth.
An enigma of all ages, on the rung you stand a top.
Like a kisser’s lips wearing the finest make up,
Industry festooned you with creative highness:
The ways of a black mother, you belauded in its depthness