Nigerian Songs

Bush Path 

Far reaching murmurs in the tops of trees 

as he walks the rubber groves. He sees 

red mushrooms offering a choice of destinies. 

Great woody pods like Titan’s sperm are strewn 

about while juju offerings pipe a tune 

in harmony with bentwood snares. It’s noon. 

Does his last step release the woods’ loud cries? 

Does his poised foot support time as it flies? 

Give us now, wind, what our next step implies. 

 Niger Delta Postcard 

 A wary lizard tightens its throat to a fist. 

Flies and roaches greet each other with winks. 

Stoic trees accept the drifting mist. 

Swamps sit sullen and stew more stinks. 

The tough and yielding humid air allows to none 

but death a chill – but always it eats at the backside of care 

and hawks toward the mouse of the spinal will. 

After Rain 

The one-legged chicken hops next door. 

Winged ants take to the air. 

A mouse dashes furtive along the floor. 

The sun ignites my hair. 

The shortwave sounds berserk. 

Breath's suspended in this bush 

where weaving spirits lurk. 

Water's still and nothing's seen 

but in the eye a fish's scale. 

One drop of dew falls every hour 

 and desire chokes on its swallowed tail. 

Tin roofs sloped down lonely 

as the mist around them crept. 

The boys seemed insubstantial, 

though the ground around was swept, 

and besom streaks and footsteps 

proved the sand’s reality 

and moved me to affirm 

that they were there, 

but I, I walked a shadow in the air. 

The woods were full of fragrance as he wrapped 

a few choice peels and shadows, shreds of life, 

to make some juju like the mind’s shotput. 

(He hung the parcel under dripping fronds 

and off a silent hippopotamus 

slid and glided on with radiant wake.) 

(Unlikely as the wish that’s fired aloft, 

the hammer of the cocked brain, flashing home.) 

The Rush of the Developing World 

As the grand Ughelli 

oba of taxes 

 in the back seat 

grunts ecstatic wheeze 

sounds of prosperity 

 muffled by a three-piece 

woolen suit and the Indian 

teacher in transparent shirt 

and shades glares at the wheel 

and accelerates, 

we pass a huge rough lorry 

filled with heavy timbers 

and labeled “peace and love” 

and a Mercedes 

driven by a skinny young guy 

driven by ambition 

both pass us 

simultaneously 

on the rutted lane and a half of dirt road. 

Between Warri and Benin 

slow and steady 

bicycle legs pump 

by the side of the road 

(black and close-mouthed 

British bikes with long memories 

and brows that furrow 

when they're parked out back); 

slow and steady 

burdened pedestrian steps 

by the side of the road 

as we fade in and out 

of white Peugeot crises, 

pass and are passed without cease, 

by slow rusting auto ruins, 

by roasting huts where blood's run thin; 

slow and steady 

produce people prone 

     respiring by their goods under the sun; 

     as others simply sit without excuse 

their hearts beat slow and steady 

and my heart fell into the heat 

and arrived in Benin's red dust 

and saw on the Great Circular Road 

The Slow and Steady Hotel 

at journey's end.