ÒGÚNYọMÍ ISRAEL ABÍDÈMÍ

ÒGÚNYọMÍ ISRAEL ABÍDÈMÍ

CHAMELEON

Where is the daring superhero?

Bring the Moon's golden yolk!

Where are the brave, hefty warriors?

Snatch the Tigress's cunning cub!

Return, O chameleon,

The garment of the Savannah!

Show the world you're original!

A GLIMPSE OF HOPE

Shred off your tattered rags, o piteous plants,

Sing and dance;

Break this ancient fast,

Eat and drink;

Strip off your weary garments,

O mountain trees,

Wear the green;

This land-striking drought

Will soonest vanish away,

Resplendent rain will soonest reign again -

Outrightly puking his frightening fingers

At the burning earth's fiery insolence,

Steaming and boiling the elegance

Of your treasured roots.

SHED NO TEARS

Shed no tears, my love;

This darkness is just but a while.

While it off, until a bare dawn

Flips away the beauty of her ugliness,

Soaked and soften to earth in an indigo

Of depression, and swaddles your head

In turbans of hope;

While it off: it wouldn't last.

Let my warm arms sing your lullaby,

Deny your pretty skull,

All relics of sad memories

Hanging heavy cosmetics of sorrow

Upon the crescent of your brave brow

Let the blanket of the stars hide your tears,

And the petals of hibiscus be your dreams.

While it off: it wouldn't last.

WORDS OF THE DISTANT BARD

I'll wait at the dawn

For the youthful sprouts

Of the morning sun.

Its radiant ray may make

Your image clearer in my mind.

I'll stand at the dusk

By the river's bank

Listening to the songs

Of the twittering birds.

There will their voices

Blaze my id anew

With the thoughts in your mind.

Here, I am; there you are.

There, my heart; here your own.

Perhaps we're fortunate

An Egret  flies tomorrow,

I'll send a few poems

Through the totem of the white chalk.

A THRENODY FOR MY GREAT PA

It dawns on a trapped bush-rat

In the compound of my great pa:

Spittle-baked bricks break, cracking

The heart of my father's earth.

Return homeward, Baba-Egbe,

Liberate your feet from deceptive

Enchantment of immortal journey;

Return homeward, Baba-Egbe,

The walls you built have fallen

Only the broken bricks endure.

Those also are powdering to the earth,

Leaving your land defenseless

Against intruders' persistent blows

And your children, perennial cowards

Quivering behind their father's broken walls.

BLUES FOR A BARD'S QUEEN

Let us play the game

Of the dialectician:

I the night, you the moon;

So shall we in a complementary

Contradiction detect ourselves.

Let us dance the dance

Of the drunkard:

You the drunk belly,

I the staggering feet;

So shall we in an intoxicating

Conjugation reseal our deal.

EYE OF THE NOON

The sun reddens the noon

As liquor reddens the eyes.

O double-bodied, tie your pins:

Dare not the midday's apparitions.

O wrinkled widow, drag your ember

Into the hollow of your thighs

Lest he turn into silvery ashes.

NOTE

*

O Egret, spot on me (my nails),

O Egret spot on me (my nails);

Take the black away,

Bring the white home;

By this time tomorrow,

You are home...

YES IT RAINS

The sky clears his throat,

Stamps sticky sputum

Upon the chest of the mountain.

Agbeko* whimsically retorts,

Washing that impetuous insult

Down the brows of the valley

With a stream of gushing granites;

Before the drowsy dawn opens

His eyelids, yes, it rains.

*Agbeko is a mountain in Ikosin, Ifelodun LGA, Kwara State, Nigeria.

HURRAY FOR THE RAIN ROD

Hurray for the rain rod,

Landlord of the other room!

In and out, out and in, indescribably;

To and fro, fro and to, inexplicably;

Until it gases out an infuriated ocean

Into the deepest corner of the other room,

Whose hairy rooftop forbids

The face of the rising Sun,

Whose temperate tunnel

Detests the light of the midnight moon,

Whose sumptuous sweetness

Transcends the thought of the tasting tongue,

Where reason fatally falls flat -

Prevailing passion, presenting the leading light!

MY PAIN

Let your coyness be my courage

O damsel of a rear breed.

My pain, painful than yours

Bewails my heart, mind, and soul

On every blissful advent of the dawn.

Hearing you voice from the abyss

Of the dark night, at once

I am a frightened coward on my inside,

Pissing in pants and trousers;

Sighting your face in a bare day,

I am a valourous lion on the outside,

Stronger than the strengths of stark rocks.

Let your coyness be my courage:

Make me a man on the in and on the outside.

AN ODE TO THE OLD

A thousand eyeballs in a single socket

Busty boughs without roots

Balanced feet on the wind’s cleavage

A flocked farm without plants

A crowded market with no marketers

Familiar birds with strange twitter

Rappers of two hundred rappers

Whose edges touch not the earth

Masticators of the arm with the cranium

Chewers of the liver with the heart

Munchers of the intestine with the bile

Bushy heads without louse

Nocturnal birds with wondrous move

Aged folks with witty wings.

ÒGÚNYọMÍ ISRAEL ABÍDÈMÍ

ÒGÚNYọMÍ ISRAEL ABÍDÈMÍ hails from Owode-Ofaro, Ifelodun Local Government Area Kwara State, Nigeria. He is a graduate of philosophy from Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State; Nigeria. He was a Production Manager for ANA-Osun (O.A.U. Branch) for a year and a Poetry Columnist/ Production Manager at The Critic, Department of Philosophy, O.A.U. (also for a year). He is a poet, an activist, a humanist, and a 'womanist'. His works have been published in various creative websites such as: Hillsrael (hillsraelabidemi.wordpress. com) and Penmind Media & Creativity. He won the NIBSTEARS' Yoruba Poetry Prize in November, 2016.