WE CAME TO PLAY

(excerpts)


….Come listen to our songs
Woven in our web of tales
Telling of births and life
Of yesterdays that never return
Of yesterdays that cling to now
Of todays that lie half-lived without tomorrow
And of many nights of tomorrow
When like Ogoo
We’ll know the ways of the wind and rain
Telling our children to clap and sing
While they wait for you to come to play…

IF YOU ASK

(excerpts)

If you ask
Where life was before it began
You would want to know
Why death kills without dying.

If you know
The source of a spring
You would ask
How it met the ocean.

IF YOU ASK

(excerpts)

If you ask
Where life was before it began
You would want to know
Why death kills without dying.

If you know
The source of a spring
You would ask
How it met the ocean.

WHEN I WAS BORN

(excerpt)

…She was moaning
In a labour of sweet pain
As she got abash in blood
When I was born.

She called me Omalicha
The name of a beautiful soul
Chanted to bring forth the season of rain
When I was born.

NOW THAT DREAMS ARE BORN

Hear her voice…in whispers
(excerpts)


YOU HAVE COME

i

Set out before dark clouds
Gather in the eyes of the sun
For you shall pass through paths
r
u
n
n
i
n
g
in roses and thistles
On a thousand crooked bends

Set out with your basket of hope
To gather wealth s c a t t e r e d
in the heart of the earth

Omo mi t’o nlo s’oja
Do not scatter the shrimp and gather its shell
Do not trade the seed to buy the leaves

Set out my child through fallow lands
And fetch abundance from the bed of the sea.


iii
…echi di ime

but ogboo told me that I am the mystery born of the spirits
unfolding on each waking pulse of time

mubuwa
a lone child of twin destinies who has wrestled with demons
in hollow valleys and thorny dungeons


mu bu onye ma uwa m
that is why I won’t be lost in the bazaar of twinkling vanities
where men hawk the priceless wares of their souls

O mu bu onye ma uwa m

…how then can tomorrow hide mysteries in her womb
when I am the seed already born


…where is paradise?

Paradise comes to watch us
as we learn the ride of life
on the ascending hills
bruising the knees
and yet standing tall…

OMALICHA

The Beautiful One

Is a poetic collection which extols the nature and essence of woman, her role in the creative circle of life…the powers she wields and the ethereal expressions of her being to bring sanity and balance to a man-made world.


MARIA

Far from the prodding eyes
of men and angels
she toils…
with the strength
of a thousand soldiers
she bears the world…
then her shoulders falling…
yet she’s running to embrace
the f l e e t i n g dreams
of her own world
Beaten
Battered
And broken
In her boudoir
she veils her bleeding scar
with a smile to save Belzebub…


Maria
Mother of the earth
Pour your jars of uncried tears
into our empty pots
Maria
Goddess of all that is born of love
break these iron walls of silence…



Talk Maria
Death hovers
in
the
belly
of your
silent gnasings

dreams are dying!

Maria talk…

Life is wilting !

Talk Maria…

Salvation is come.

IN MY EYES

A Child’s memorable verse
(excerpts)
Is a creative piece of poetic verse written in simple language to engage the impressionable heart of the child. It opens the mind of the child to the divine uniqueness of his/her world and provides a ground to speak, to and about him/herself in words so pure and untainted as against the imposed ………..of the outside world.


Long before the earth came
long before beauty was named
I dwell in Nature’s wonder
…waiting to be born.


I was in a far away place…
life beckoned to me
and I came to you
in an arpeggio of dreams
yet
unborn


Tell me mother…
that in the days
when
life
is
cut
short
by the swiftness of time
that
I shall last long
in the palm of the earth


I
have come
to plant greatness
beyond
the seas…
c o n q u e r i n g
strange lands