OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI

OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI Sep 2017

Who’ll hear, a bitter tale for the tails
About the two drummers who are set,
To beat their palms upon the drum,
To free a sound their hands can’t catch,
And to struggle that the horn be split?

The sound’s a dirge filled with grieve
That all ears shall hear when it flies.
But many will take it for a true dance;
They will dance and spill their bloods,
And mix it with the naïve thirsty sand
Often hungry not tired of looking dry.
They’ll dance to dazzle the drummers
Who have fled the drum into cozy hides,
Who have made the dancers their ears,
Who deafened their ears from the voices
Of both the dancers and their own beat.
They will dance to dazzle the drummers,
And sweat and cry more tears of fuel
As drops upon a soft blazing inferno.

They will dance till the sound is dead,
When they’ve grown weak and numb,
At the sight of the arsons and the piles,
Of bodies and parts, waiting to be kept
In the belly of the gargantuan ground,
By the drummers who are now priest
Who’ll say: “weep not, for they’ve R.I.P.”

But they still won’t stop crying alone
At seeing black yesterday jump into today,
Holding pity pictures of dancers after action
To pinch their minds and cause real-weeps;
Asking them why they all had to dance
Even when they didn’t bang the drum.

A poem on the looming Biafra and Nigeria grievances.

OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI Aug 2017

A New Home Song

Oh yes! The sun shall rise,
When the morning crow breaks a dawn
And brace our feet and fill our hands
To drag our bags and walk our talks.
Oh yes! The sun shall shine,
When it billion rays cause us tears
And melts our flesh and salt our sweats
To make us an anthem and pledge.
Oh yes! The sun shall set,
When it's Half and Yellow in the sky
And the shouts of joy takes the air
To let us hug our new home.

Oluwatimilehin Adejumobi Alabi

OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI Jul 2017

I Miss the Oodua Soil

I miss the place of the rising sun;
For nothing makes my hair stand here.
No one to sing me my very ‘oriki,’
Nor the slightest ‘se dada loji?’

I miss the place of the ‘gangan’ beats;
For no meals shakes my tongue here.
No one to make me ‘efo oni kpomo’ with ‘iru,’
Nor the slightest ‘garri’ of ‘ijebu.’

I miss the place of the ‘aso ofi;’
For no clothes touches my sight here.
No one to tap me that very ‘emu oguro,’
Nor the slightest good-sauced ‘eja odo.’

For if not for the clarion call,
Oh! let ‘egbe’ come take me home,
With the real speed of ‘monomono.’

Oluwatmilehin Adejumobi Alabi

OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI Jan 2017

NO HOME-HOLE RETURN

Alas! At the dawn time,
Pinky sees Doe and Buck,
Stiff on a gummy fold’ble pad:
And each roll to 'scape each made,
Stripped their skin so callous.
Shortly, a bigger mice arrived,
Not nosy, taily and clawly,
Threaded fearsomely and made’way
Dear Doe and Buck for life.

(Flashback)
Pinky: Oh Precious Father
Why oust you and Doe alone,
Long during dusk decend,
Yet make us hide astaya’day?

Buck: Curious and cutie Pinky,
The world a’day; nice and bright,
Is but an awaiting dreary ambush.
And a’night: a bit dreary ambush.
Doe and I: nosy, taily and clawly,
Will make something in your belly stay.

Pinky: Oh! Precious Mother,
I’m nosy, taily and clawly.
I can raid with you a’night,
And swift through ambush a’day.

Doe: Anxious and eager Pinky,
A full fall from far a sky,
Is as the voyage a’day.
And a breath once expelled
Is as the raid at night.
You WILL a’day get crashed,
And MAY a’night **** breath expelled.

Buck: Curious and Anxious Pinky,
The raid a’day and a’night,
Is as the sides of fate coin:
A home-hole return, Or a home-hole no return.
Ding **** Oh Pinky,
It’s time for our raid.
More shall I learn you,
If my side is home-hole return.

(Off Flashback)
Then whispered and cowered the other Watching mice:“The coin’s ‘no home-hole return."

Sketches  and Rough Analysis
This poem is a dramatic poem because of it adoption of the fictional surrealistic characters. However the style of characterization that makes the poem classified as dramatic, the poet deplorationof the essential features of the plot element which is peculiar to the genre; drama, that is, flashback, makes the poem indisputably a dramatic poem.
The poet through the auspice of existentialism, an ideology advocating that the 'essence of human life outweighs the existence of human life', recounts the struggles of humans through the surreptitious miens of animals such as the family of mice to pontificate ‘Home’ through the sides of  a coins which determines  humans’ fate as to life or death.
In the poem, the poet present home as an inevitable habour; a place of censusing the entire memebers of the family as to knowing whomsoever that got ensnared to death in the oddites of life during day or night task of struggling for survival.
Using he biological family of mice as a satireto represent human struggles and the inevitablity of her challenges: the search for food and death, the poet imply that the problems of real rats in the hand of humans (represented as 'a bigger mice without long nose, tail and claws) is the same as the problem real humans suffer in the hands of the unknown who tends thwart human life presumably because humans are seen as alien invading for their (human) survival the territories that belongs to the unknown.

Summary of Oluwatimilehin's No Home-hole Return
Pinky a child to Doe and Buck sees his parents stuck in a human made adhesive trap, and each attempt his parents made to extricate themselves got painfully peeling their skin till they died.
Pinky alongsideother mice sees the cruel death of Doe and Buck as well as the fearsome being without tail, long nose or claws who packs away the corpse of Doe and Buck.
At the sight of the cruel scene, Pinky recalls the last conversation he had with his parent the night before the present dawn.Pinky asks why Doe and Buck often go out long at night leaving him alone and making them stay at home during the day. Buck replies and justifies his moment by explaining that the day could be nice and bright as it appears, but come with a dreary ambush and the night,: a less dreary ambush. Buck however assures that he together with his mother will provide him food daily.
Pinky goes again to his mother, Doe,presenting himself as one that is experienced and can withstand the hustle of  the night and can scale through the day's dreary ambush.His mother comes in bluntly at Pinky by likening the day hustle as a full fall from a far sky which leaves no hope of survival. And she likens the night raid as breath which we expel we may hopefully live to **** in.
Buck corks the whole explanation by likening both the raid of the day and the night to the two sides of a coin which determines ones life or death. And if it determines life, then the coin is a 'home-hole return', but if otherwise, the coin is a 'no home-hole return'.

OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI Nov 2016

THE TASK I PAID FOR CHANGE

The task I pay for change
With my thumbs I make my choice.
My very own choice without coercion
Oh! Hear me, my dearly pay for change.

The balance in my diet has flown.
See me and how I have become.
The 2nd to none to Iya oni Jedi
Since the constant change I chose,
Is nothing but inconsistent starch.
Tearful, I gaze at the Umbrella man.
And he mused:"Tunde!,
The task you paid for change"

My fresh fair skin has flown,
Replaced with spots as guinea fowl
Upon my flesh the night beast fed
For in darkness, my fair body lay
In night and day, no power
For my blade to blow away the beast
Ha! Bitter tablet becomes my mint.
Again he mused:"Emeka!,
The task you paid for change"

In abundance of what we own,
I drove to fuel, and got stuck.
Early at dawn under crescent sky,
My car, the endless queue has snatched
Alas! I now seek water and grass.
My keys unlost, but horse I ride
Since I starve in what abound.
Again he said: "Danladi!,
The task you pay for change"

Poet: Oluwatimilehin Adejumobi Alabi

This poem explicate the minds of Nigerians who are embattled with the tragic taste of change proposed by her new government. This change as promised is supposed to bring relief and so her citizens have held the government to high esteem. However ironically, this change has turned out to be tragic and quite unexpected of as situation seems to migrate from bad to worse.

OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI Nov 2016

TUSSLE OF THE BRIGHT DAY

At the hours the night breaks into dawn,

And the white sky flexes his blue agile muscle

For the shining sun's golden ray to rest on lawn,

And the birds, her wings, to spread and tussle.

I too had forlorn my warm cozy blanket and bed,

To rove the hard market's nook and cranny stores

With just a few innate coin my young palm held,

Enchanted by some bulky goodies therein the malls.

I strolled up and below as an o'clock pendulum,

And aimless as the flexy bead of a lassie's waist.

I saw my pine goodies stoop over my small sum

And all my sums like stew but no tongue to taste.

So this film went on and on like the flowing stream

Till the once bright-young day sank dark and dim

Poet: Oluwatimilehin Adejumobi Alabi

This poem expresses the mind and physical combat of a typical Nigerian who has just finished his/her studies and is somewhat stuck or confused about how to go about life.

OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI Nov 2016

SEE IT FROM THE END

My eyes are of the hills, I see what it is;
When the night guards lost their ways,
And the ball of the hunter whistle is miss.
Ha! I see from the hills what ahead lays.

My eyes are of the witch, I see what is deep;
When the shepherd misplaces his rod,
And to be the lord are the lot of his sheep.
Ha! I See all duel over who to be the lord.

My eyes are of the wise, I see with my mind;
When the chief's pant is turn underneath,
And his child point and laugh at his find.
Ha! I see the shame the visitor see both with.

Oh! I see, when we crack our egg with stone,
Alas! And we have nothing left to call our own.

#Indeed, I see it from the end#

POET: OLUWATIMILEHIN ADEJUMOBI ALABI

This poem is an admonition that emphasizes on us as humans to often picture the outcome or turn-out of our actions before acting.