Water of remembrance sprinkled
On the mountain crest of recollection.
Indulgent mussy memory catapulted
Stones of retentiveness into the
Courtyard of events like bricole
Of battles.
Pendulum of reminiscences swinging
On oscillating milage of roads like
Trotting horse with drippage of sweat
And itching foots.
Ghost of reminiscences restlessly
Roaming with carriage of yesteryear.

Final year educatees required
Boardinghouse,
But list of items engorged dear
Mother's treasury

"where do l raise money
to buy oyinbo mattress, Ilori?"

Mind pullulated with weariness.
Intonation of worries.
Cantillation of wants.
Deficiency of measured means.
Oyinbo mattress beyond ladder
Of reach.
Gluttonously waiting to devour
Lesser items,
But rays of compulsion unslammed
The gate of respite.

Lordly arrival warmly welcomed by
The dorm room's porter,
Walking majestically to the bed-space
With the acquired cotton wool and raffia leaves mattress.
Gamut of items passed through the eagle's eyes of the housemaster.
Silver painted pail donated by a neighbour passed through the sentry of inspection,
And got its admission.
Mother's used cloak turned bedsheets
Passed through the rigorous scrutiny.
Newly built portmanteau unlocked and neatly dissected, item by item.

Agazed eyes focused on the cotton wool and raffia leaves hand-made mattress.
Expectations rattled mumbling astonishment.
Legs stuck in the mud of mystification.
Telepathic dews covered ocean of thought.
Tranquil silence engulfed vicinity,
Deflating the balloon of hope like a litigant awaiting verdict from the jurist's chambers.
Porter's gesticulating gesture connoted nothingness of demeaning disapproval, perambulating on the hilly terrain of approval.

Akimbo stood l.

Now the verdict!

Molten volcanic magisterial command erupted in a gestapo gesture,
Spudding out from the barytone's baritone voice from the selfsame housemaster,
From the bastion of authority,
And the house generalissimo like a wild brant squalled, matter-of-factly,

"we do not accept bed bugs cotton wool and raffia leaves hand-made mattress here".

Entreaties collapsed.

I see you in the sky ,
Far, afar off.
I watch you from the earth,
Far, afar off.
Brightness enlightens the
      vicinity from the grip of
      elemental forces,
Enveloping the entire arena and
      beyond like the mother hen
      brooding her children out
      of the reach of seducing eyes
      of a roaming hawks in the
      sky.
Your dome-shaped entity
      distinctively standing aloof
      like a magnificent rotunda
      palatial in the Arabian oasis.

Thirty nights of illumination,
When we spreads our mats
      to narrate tale under your
      watchful eyes.
When elders recounts narrative
      and ancient panorama of
      yesteryears.
When we clap,
When we sing,
When we dance
In the womb of your greatness.

Thirty nights of total darkness,
When lanterns endlessly
      searches for light to
      extinguish darkness,
When the night-callers
      terrorizes our quietness,
When the guardsmen work
      like wild wolves to fish
      out the sons of Belial,
When the night impels babies
      to retire to their cradles,
When the wiles of darkness
      inculcate an aura of fear into
       our minds.

Prolong your circles and
      brighten our hope.
You produces light,
You illuminates season.
Your neighbor reigns over
      days,
While you control the affairs
      of darkness.

In a day like this
At a time like this
On an occasion like this
When the hunter returns
From hunting expeditions
With an empty porch.


Where is the hope?
For the hunted
Where lies the matadors,
When the hunter returns
With baggage of nothingness?

Where is our hope?
When the rays of politics
Mitigate not our hardship
Sending a recourse to an ending hope

Call back our progenitors
Let the beats resonate again
To rechange this change
Their change and our hope
Where is our tomorrow?

Snoring gangling giant,
Slumbering away on a snowy
      night.
Spoil of war unprotected,
Opening ways for ingress of
      worrisome infiltrated
      interlopers.
Remember the lord of Philistine
      Samusini,
Who returned not from the
      seductive antics of his
      mistress,
Perished in the furnace fire of
      frustration,
And drowned in the Laguna of
     no return

Slumbering hindered the move
      of the water.
Howling of devourers enclosed
      your shack.
Heterocercal caudal fins of
      sharks prevented the sailing
      of ships.
Wolfished wailing of tidal waves
      consumed the anchorage
      ground.
And the apparition of foes
      lurked-up in darkness like
      the foehn on the Alps.

Awake before the devastating
      night owl.
Awake from the abyss of deep
      slumber.
Awake before the cockcrow,
When darkness of defeats
Controls the reigns of night.
Snoring gangling giant,
Awake unto light.

Your love waited so long.
Your affection waited too long.
Promises in abeyance.
Dying in anxiety of expectations
Ozone layer could not hold rays
      of Azania's sun.
Emitting fire of hysterical
      jubilations.

Arrival in hold, mistily shrouded
      in mystery.
But one day, one moment,
One belief, one fulfillment ,
Appearance announced
       unnoticed.

Wait no more for so long.
Wait no more for too long.
Reality eclipsed empty promises
Arrival overturned unbelief,
In the enclave of Azania.
In the bowel of rainbow.

Fluttering fingers flicking
      the wisps,
Scattered particles helplessly
      staring like zombie.
Denizen of dispersal !
Scattering without gathering ?
Littering innocent sleeping shore
      with specks, refuse and
      wastages,
Preventing the marine beings
      from feasting on unsolicited
      booties,
While reigning over the aquatics
      casia.

Fishes glorying beneath your
      stool,
Celebrating in their splendid
      splendor,
Cherishing your inordinate
      habitat encroachment,
Relishing the cool bustling
      breeze,
Stuttering intermittently over
      natural abuse while your
      fingers beating the tombola
      drum of indifference.

Legion of blue blunting busied
      parading over the army of
      the waterbeds,
Savouring the delights of your
      majesty.

But why scattering the wisp
     on the river bank?
Devouring the hearts of the clean
      axis of the river bank.

Fresh air oozing from the gallery
      of neighbouring vegetation
      aromatized your bustling
      breeze, refreshing hearts,
Clear away your stink.
Evacuate your nuisance.

Saintly cassock,
Glittering altar
Ornamental pulpit.
           
 

Driving the congregants
            in a paroxysm of fib,
Gullibility enshrines adherents
            hearts.
Do you know the Messiah more
            than the apostles ?
Thou traders in the temple.

Parrotic tongues set out
            commands
Loquacious sweet-coated mouths
            misdirects faithfuls.
But the uncreated Creator who
            creates creatures watches
Dreadful silence astonishingly
            permeates the entireness
           of the universe.
Do you preach love?
Do you follow peace with all?
Ye robbers in the temple.

Command darkness to produce
            light.
But you turned moonlight into
            tale.
Can you display Davidic dance
            steps on the road?
Profanity of sanctuary with
            false homiletics.
Merchants of dross in tabernacle

Speak.
Let us hear you.
Preach
To the congregants.

Righteousness afar from the
          apron of faith.
Charity locked up in the
          tunic of hope.
Sanctity of holiness sprinkled
          into the tributary of sin.
Commanding the stars to turn
           to sun,
Captains of night in light.
Ye robbers in the sanctuary.

Pastoral advertisers of chattels
           in the tabernacle,
Merchandising gold dross in
            sermonic hymns.
Sugar-coated doctrine wept in
             the tomb of Lazarus.
Prompting Him to weep again?
Ye merchants in synagogue.

Disentangle faithfuls from the
          webs of worriment.
Dislodge congregants out of the
          shackles of sin.
Deliver ignoramus from the
           isle of incendiary.
Let the sifter of strength
           separate out afflictions from
           feebleminded faithfuls.

Ye robbers in the temple
You love prayers more than God
But who answers prayers?