Homeland

This week’s first update is a poem about my native country of Nigeria. Now im not the typical African patriot, im not a huge fan of modern nigerian music, afrobeats, nollywood movies etc but i do believe if you look past the sometimes cringe worthy attempts at imitating western culture (especially in the movies) there is great beauty to be found as writers such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka showed us. Without further ado here’s my poem: Homeland.

(Picture taken from and courtesy of http://www.artseaprovence.com/category/art-2/some-of-my-older-paintings/)

Amidst an urban twilight’s man made haze,
Of car lights which strived against the setting sun.
I arrived in the heart of an alien season
And paradise, home, i impatiently sought.

With prodigious expectations,
Smiles, embraces, familiar faces, I welcomed them all,
For truly she is the motherland, of tale and lore and song.
Whose imprinted insignia in skin is marked intricately with melanin,

Typified by strong limb, curled hair, and dark eyes
Wide as the mouths of drums, whose stories reverberate
Through generations in DNA, and when i close my eyes
I can hear their words played by ancient fires

Which rise into the same mottled sky
As the smoke from a roadside barbecue,
As the sound of frenzied laughter
Mixed with the luscious scent of tripe.

A collage of sounds, colours and sights
Vermillion bush and viridian leaf
In the home of the children of Cush
The eagle’s eyrie.

How her daughters poetically beam
As the full moon off Nile’s streams.
A sub-saharan dream,
The glory of aphrodite

Shines off gold hooped earrings, afro hair
Long braids, around her face.
She will be beauty’s oracle
With unbleached skin and unwoven follicles.

But wounded is our beloved mother.
Her offspring weep petroleum tears,
She sweats floods of her children’s blood,
Her corruptions dehydrating her, deluding her demeanour

Her nightmarish wails at the thunderous gunfire
Which echo through the cracks of her divided house.
Some of her children heed the call
But it is not her voice they answer

The applause of guns and death rattles, that is not her voice they answer.
The imam’s cry and the bishops reply, that is not her voice they answer.
The poor man’s scream for loss of dream, that is not her voice they answer.
But she shall speak through the myths, then civil war will desist
her purest voice of bliss, ill listen to hereafter.

January 7, 2013 | Categories: Poetry | Tags: Africa, Black, Chinua Achebe, homeland, Jola, Nigeria, Obisesan, poetry, Wole soyinka | 1 Comment