 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
CHIEDU EZEANAH
SONG OF THE MUSICIAN OF WATERS (from Song of Songs, Book III)
With such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?
-“Conversation Among The Ruins”-Sylvia Plath
Poetry is still treason because it is truth
“Italian Eclogues, for Joseph Brodsky” –Derek Walcott.
I
The Water-Hero who piped a while ago is dead This scoop hasn’t been bombed yet … Earth is overshadowed by a green dirge Fertile torrents of a tongue over dismal creeks rhymed the dirge, The mocking-bird rhymed the dirge the mocking-bird too died, In an oesterus of love beneath gas shrouds. Hail to blood in the waters Hail the Lord of Rocks in a trance inside the Rock Hail the Blind General and the Hangman Hail the tragic habit of wounding the earth. Too many truths broadcast, too many truths overwhelmed The singer had no other world except the dazed creeks He re-imagined the creeks, sang to the hour its tragedies In the singer’s dirge that prophesied peace.
II
First Ogoni, then writer , Then martyr and then ghost; The world scoffed at Ogonis, Scoffed at the writer/martyr; Not hoeing the ghost’s music- And there grows a genocide tide in hanging deaths. There’s so much death all over Bori Because there’s so much oil under Bori… The poisonous waves of rivers shrivel the roots of nations
After Biafra, only the incendiary oil wells after Okigbo… The Muse of woods made ashen roots Speak toxin of their wound; Welcome, O death that reaps more life for the dead Of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa I sing-
III
It’s the terminus It’s gift is the intensity of stained ritesThat repair nothing. It’s the terminus
Of the Lords of Undertones- Dire appetite for silence reigns, Past the people’s power now to oust.
It’s the terminus. It’s gift are his two eyeballs, translucent suns: One for the dead, one for unborn breaths that’ll renew song
It’s the terminus, thank the poisoning of air Thank the bird-killing blaze, thank Saro-wiwa Thank his earlobes that trapped the burnt wood of events Thank the vivid ruin that we must not share!
|
|
SENTINEL POETRY #29, Online Magazine Monthly, April 2005, ISSN 1479-425X |
