Thursday, June 1, 2017

ÒGÚNYọMÍ ISRAEL ABÍDÈMÍ

ÒGÚNYMÍ 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.

ÒGÚNYMÍ ISRAEL ABÍDÈMÍ



ÒGÚNYMÍ 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. 

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