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I KNOW A FUCKED UP
ENGLISHMAN as clever as a fox
who does the mischief that
is done in everybody's heart
anywhere we gather to
celebrate the festival of Ogun.
No one ever sees blood on
his fangs but we all know,
deja vu, that everytime
Ogun is rimmed or nibbled in the arse,
it, most certainly, is by
his imperial majesty, King James IV.
- (excerpt from
'King James Version' by Esiaba Irobi in Why I Don't Like
Philip Larkin & Other Poems)
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ZINO ASALOR
The Returning
(To Esiaba Irobi)
Buried behind blinking seas
Of fire
Is a glance that beckons,
Death-cries of a Lion
Teasing the hyena's gut
Yet retreat in a twirl
A giggling seduction
Seeds of your sowing
Sprung from my soil,
questions
The sort of a setting sun
Turning her back, returning
Already sure
Of my
speechlessness
Hearts must be brave in wars
Of life, I know; but glints
Of bow'd arrows reveal
Crimes un-committed
My feet remember
Another law of war
The lore of Gomorrah'n
Candle sticks that dared trap
Quills of wind in their eyes
So I flee, a free man
With slave chains to cotton
Fields; the cracking whips of
Eternal tutelage
Who are we but as errant
ships
Sailed from the ports of
mercy
Calling onto the other
As to a mother, and you are
The rain that relieves the
cloud
The howl of the moon that
excites the sea
Sequestered in questions,
Conundrums burst open
Coconut water of undiscovered
selves
Penning shadows on pale pages
by day
Pilfering snatches into
Drooping eyes of your night
Are you all one, cocooned
In this caves of wonder,
teeth
Of the same slanted smile?
You smile as though
It was
you who first discovered wine
Cast away in the corner rooms
Of maybes, struck in
mid-speech
Like eyes caught in the
fishing nets
Of Calliope's bust
Your genius illumines the
shadowed
Places of my heart
Reeking of inchoate
Desires and shameless thirsts
For the punch of your gin
To which no throat replies
The caress of vines that
stable
Drunken tremors of a life
without
When all that remains is
Tar stains on Life's aged
lips
When all left behind is
Ashy tendrils rippling
Through the desert dunes of
Heaven's gates
Who.
Will. Tell. Your. Story?
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