Fragments

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POEMS
BY CHUKS ORIUWA
1

CONTENTS

Preface

These poems are fragments of some of my thoughts and emotions, over a very long
period. They could also be a selection of distinct images which I find interesting to have
re-discovered, in some cases, after 25 years. These are arranged, from 2011, back to
1985. We all reach a point in our lives when we try to take stock. We may find ourselves
reading through old papers, throwing out stuff. This is the circumstance under which
these poems are published. It is also a form of catharsis, I guess.
For me, imagery is the most interesting aspect of poetry, not rhymes or forms. I also
believe that the image should be accessible, succinct, and possibly compelling. The
social context for these images run from my background in Lagos, Nigeria, and up to
the time I have lived in Canada.
There are two central themes for the poems selected here: first, the poems about
romantic experiences, and then the more diverse category of poems around social and
political consciousness.

..................................
Chuks Oriuwa
Toronto

BIO Chuks Oriuwa was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. He graduated from Obafemi
Awolowo University in 1990 and The Nigerian Law School in 1991. He was called to the
Nigerian Bar in 1992, but moved to Canada in 1998, where he currently practices as a
lawyer.

Summer of 2011 (For K.)

Lying under a summer tree

With fruits littered all around
And birds sailing overhead.
Above the shadows of fear,
Small animals are free.
A hundred miles of these rolling hills
With their smooth, neighbourly rocks
Like the gait of a woman I know
Her beauty quietly proclaimed
By this soft embrace of cloud.
Such is the nurture in her breasts
And her hips, and her clammy bosom.
Lying here, with thoughts suggested yesterday, in her eyes:
My soul comes full circle
I shall not want.

Thinking of Karen (January, 2011)

My soft, beautiful woman

She slides into the design of my day.
Though a thousand miles away
Her gentle gaze runs a straight line
To my mind: some moods we've shared!
Last night, I was awakened by a thought
Of how I may come to deserve her.
I had a barefoot dream watching undulating images
Of her perfect forms and sheen on the horizon,
Knowing how to not know, but to wonder!
About the omniscience of her eyes
As it enlightens my mind, the visual into her world
On that first night we made love.
O' how my spirit sailed into the blurred horizon
Of her cloudy touch, as air reached the cloud!
That night of a billion stars, after her twilight embrace
Discovering in her, places beyond reason - places
Beyond reciprocity - where time is forgotten.
So, what can I say about my day, except the day-dream
That her sweet smile follows me everywhere.

Pornography for Men

He pounced on her
The crackling cartilage of her joints
The vulnerable movement of her muscles
He pounced on her, leaving her out there.
That was pornography.
I imagine her differently
if she were actually making love:
Her moist movements, the nutrients in her bones,
The giving and taking, and playing on soft hills That is making love!

Letter to My Love (2011)

6

Through the city transit, colour, image and time

Create this endless song in my mind
As I travel with the world, wondering
What wealth of human passion to discover.
From my stop station, walking home
I choose a street where I could see into the darker streets
Of my breathing thoughts, beyond the ordinariness
Of love and loneliness.
My imagination reaches for the secrets of your heart
And immediately, I regret never getting to your mountain-top
To see your stars launch from the sun,
To reach the embrace of your magic arms.
I didn't want to fall asleep, to drift away on a snoring stream.
So I picked up the phone and called you, to tell you
You are my escape from reality. And you say,
You don't want to be my escape.
But what is reality, if I am sleeping upside-down
If I cannot separate a plan from a hope,
If the hammer of judgment breaks the heart of justice,
If the clock ticks so loud I cannot sleep?
What is reality if my mind is a monologue
In the stream of consciousness? Unless, of course,
If my goddess is there. So, yes, you are my escape
From the other world of love and loneliness.
You are the sparkle in rushing falls; the secret shadow of flowers
At nightfall; the voice of a deity calling between heaven and earth;
That is my escape - being with you, thinking of you
In those transcendent moments of you.

Silence

There is a moment of silence

And then there is the torment of silence.
The day unfolds as usual
Baby-blue sky and egg-white clouds
Slowly drifting by the gentle breeze,
And blue bird peers through his cozy nest:
That is peace, Baby!
Then a spot in the sky
An undulating cloud or a shadow.
No, it's not an eagle - maybe
A bat hung over from a careless night
Or smoke from a sky-scrapper - not sure,
Blue Bird went back to sleep.
Nothing happened, except the lousy thought
Of shadows gathering in the sky
And the ticking of the landlady's clock
Without the aromas from her chimney.
There is something un-usual in the sky.

Walker

He walked up to the end of his stroll

Without a destination, and he walked back
And up again, on the other side of the river
He could see the lights of dawn,
As in a different world between living and nothing
He imagined he is perfect in thought and deed
As in waking and sleeping, waking to sleep
And dead to things - or he is the thing
At the end of his stroll.

Creating Woman

For each man a way of seeing a woman

A fetish, of naming her very parts
Her form liberated from function
Her being celebrated in fiction
Like the curve of rainbows, the softness of clouds,
He invites her to his song
And calls her by a thousand names
According to his fancy - her hips or her breasts.
He prowls by day and by night
In his secret streets, seeking and sizing
His kind of woman, to carve her out
In his song, his sense of beauty.

Doubt and Love

When, in a fledging courtship, doubt's

Door opens its gentle, creaking inch
That instance of instinct confronting thought
When the exchange becomes strange
There is no staring at one's own feet
Just the unspoken word pounding
On the backdoor of the skull, or speech
Overspoken, or lost in meaning.

10

Delineating

It is not just what you say

But more what you do.
Not just what you do
But what you really want to do.
Yet it is what you do
About what you want to do.
It is also how you feel
About what you want.
And what you do about how you feel
About what you think you want, after you've done it.
It is what you become because of how you feel
About what you want, that you did or did not do.

11

Self and Others

In the beginning was darkness

And a face appeared, and you were conscious of it
And it became your mother, your tribe, your face.
So, you seek to re-create this face
In other people, to banish all darkness
Because darkness tells you it's just your face.
There must be something other than darkness.
You cannot be alone again, there must be others
With a face as yours, of which you are a part.

12

Curing a Bad Marriage (Family Therapy, 2010)

I was like a gazelle flat-footed on a speedway.

There, I sat, on my palms, moping at the therapist
As he shuffled the magic cards of my inscrutable marriage.
You get my drift? I oblige to purge her of me.
The way she cried, it was High Tragedy
And the Therapist wept! On Hallowed Ground.
The curtains rose whenever I looked up
And the light fell on my wife, weeping on the Cross.
It is finished! I confessed my sins - I did.

13

Routine & Relationship

Is it like a car pulling into an empty street

Or like commuter buses before the rush hour
Or lukewarm faces crawling into bed?
How can an exciting thought become routine
If the detail is capable of a thousand interpretations?
How can learning and adventure ever cease?
How can I forego the reward of learning to please you
When there is so much to know, so much freedom
In your breezy touch, beside my scattered view?

14

Reminiscing

Do you remember
That day, by the lake
Throwing stones in the lake
The Slider - I won that one
And you won the Mosquito War
And also the Phone Tag.
I remember the sun-sets after the day
And still, the late nights on the phone
Listening to you completing my words
Or watching a movie, holding hands
Picking hairs from the story-lines
Re-directing the scene for tomorrow.
Especially, the ocean-beach of the lakefront
The mountain from quarry stones
The band-stand from the car-stereo.
And each day strung to the next
Without a doubt, from days to years
These moments are momentous.
Even now, arm in arm our silhouettes
Still ascend the gentle hills, wondering
About some innocent joke - whether it be right
To stop and touch each other in a secret place.
These moments are not stored in old calendars
They are etched in the brain and in the landscape.

15

Quiet Love

Quiet as darkness, in many a night

In the layered recesses of my mind
Reclined in all your absences,
I have loved you peculiarly!
In all your absences, I have talked to you
Promising you wings to fly,
Faith to reach the sky, from me to us
Seeing into things of the heart.

Birdsong

After the morning rain,

A damp-blanket sky still,
Rats are not yet interested in breaking
Nor birds, nor bugs.
Everything is quiet
But for a single bird in the wide sky
Gliding, singing a bird-song
Singing your infinite ways.
This birdsong, your song,
This single bird in the sky
Singing for sun.

16

The Purpose

You have read and listened

To this story with a start and an end.
You were angry about the elusive job
Of course, you over-came that
And paid off on your house.
You still remember some easy nights of wild wishes
And those tough days, zoned in on your ambitions.
You still remember the long-winding path to glory
But what glory now that you can't afford to hope
Except that the heart justifies the broken body.
Your kids are men and women who moved out.
Well, you talk to them once in a while.
You try to remember when they were kids
And you want grand-children, so you can give again.
You do this on your long walk to no-where in particular.

17

Happiness

The peacock is happiest

When his feathers please.
He leaves the priciest piece
For the hen, and struts his stuff.
This beautiful earth gives us life
But we must search for love.
We have more who give the most
And wait to take the least.

A Stirring on the Ground

Straining to hear the single bird,

An unpredicted drizzle in spring.
These women know ways to walk
In chosen casualness: light clothes painted
On the skin, hips fresh from winter
And lust in the air.
One gorgeous one said the secret is in the waist
Being aware of it, and moving like you are not.

18

Toronto Summer, 2004

Rather where-about-ly,
I glance over my breezy shoulders
At a picturesque face, and another.
I hear pleasing female voices, chattering of birds,
The booming sounds from a moving car,
And streetcars tracking endless stops.
Best of all, I love to watch those female joggers
In a becoming manner - that is They make this city move.

Times (2004)

You look at a picture of your youth

And you wonder how you sat on those high stools
Looking through louvres, to the skies
Like a jet, eating up the clouds.
Everyotherthing, you thought, became you Those endless moments of confident splendor.
Now, you know better, though less confident
Now, a memory more approximate to truth.

19

Cat-Call

I have heard the cat-call on the side-walk

The curving away of something dangerously female
A tot-tot, a nipple slip, or the soft word of a woman.
Still I strain to hear that again. I do!

Something I Forgot to Say By My Silence

Something i forgot to say by my silence

In the draught that was my marriage
I imagined whole flock thirst to death.
Thirsty for meaning, their words meant nothing.
No whispers, no tongue-in-cheek, no muttered breath
When you stare into a distance sure to be abandoned Just the cold submission to a cruel fate!
Just the cold submission to the sound of stone !

20

*** (untitled, 2000)

Five hundred gusts of wind, fifteen roads

And five thousand heartbeats
Separate my love and i.
A bubbling of light in distant shores, she is.
And I think I am the unknown
Black Hole of untapped energy.

All That Poetry

Why all that poetry

When talk will do?
The vegetable is overcooked
When voices drown the thought
And all that sand in the sound
They bleat, whine and jazz - the wrong way!
- all that art when silence will do,
- all that silence that don't break the ice.

21

On Difficult Relationships

Type one: you see the Come-In sign

And once in, you are thrown out.
Type two: there is hardly any fighting in the winter wood
Whispers of suspicion are enough to throw yourself out.
Type three: the routine is doing everything wrong
When you do anything - like eating the recipe before the dinner.
There are a lot more types you don't know
But don't forget to look at yourself.
For me, the worst was marriage to a house
Three floors of glass, and not a reflection.
Over-medicated in the company of my own thoughts
I only regretted the date, in the spider's web.

22

Citizens

One hundred million citizens

Eking out a living on the bond of belonging.
Ten thousand streams conscious
Of ten thousand kinds of natural resources
Belonging to all, born of a woman, that kind of faith
Of praying to the father that preys on the mother.

Rainbow

Can you see the rainbow behind those tall trees

The purple horizon at the end of the road?
Now, you feel the optic illusion of long trains passing
And workmen in hazard yellow, and the agitated grounds.
But the cloud above is a bright path
Between here and home: you look up and see.

23

Meditations on a Love Affair

She asked me what I wanted from her

No easy question: I looked at her
As one would look into the sun.
A little bird whispered.
I don't know yet.
I am foraging in a desperate draught
But my green conscience is budding,
And if you are the rain, I'd be waiting.

24

For I.

I have been up the mountains

And down with the archeologists.
I have heard strange birds by the streams, muttering
Of the devils of hope and reality.
I hold my peace, the promise of unspoken words.
It's been three years since
And I have heard a thousand strange stories
Of love gone wrong. Yet, I wait by the clock
That ticks in the night, in these long, alien nights
Afraid to quit my dreams before you appear.
I dreamt last night, of your eyes moving over my planet
As I lay down as the deep, blue sea, calling from an island.
Lightening and thunder taught me, your tears cleansed me.
Yet, I hold my peace for the sight of you
To be re-united with you.

(On Your Birthday - October 13, 2000)

25

Old Man and the Flower

The old man was well dressed

But he strained to walk, his gait faulted
By weak bones. His skin seemed ravaged
By time. His waist-line - well, stomach Was a big, round circle.
The old man carried a bunch of flowers
Bright, beautiful, mid-season flowers
But there was no sign of joy in his face
No sign of what he could be celebrating.
Just, maybe, a sound stored in memory.

26

Considering the Spider

A strange gift, indeed Having a baby with an enemy,

The un-conscious questions, starting with the first:
What does a mother- spider think?
A strange experience, to know
That birth is death of the former self
And life a process of re-birth, a new self
I could have accepted that, but not with that spider Not with that bragging, black- widow.
I do not question the spawning season
Nor male penguins holding those eggs
Nor wild-life endangering itself, to breed.
A desire for life is more fundamental than life itself...
But I question the way that spider bragged!
I admit I was guilty of being a man
Married to the worst view of all things male.
Yet, each night I committed the male-suicide
Just because it was there - those borrowed nights!
Each day after, the spider bragged.
It hurt so much, waiting so long for doomsday.
Now I know that babies conceived on borrowed nights
Have the long days to pay.
But ordered by her urgency, her pure presence,
I couldn't throw baby away with the birth-water.
I was ooh'ed by her hand around my fore-finger,
The shadow of a smile on her purple lips
It was wonderful to behold the birth of a baby The courage and the fear!

27

I could see the hidden moon, by this faith

That lightening is light in a dark thunderstorm,
That life is all about dying and re-birth;
That beauty in-between is hope and desire
And learning to accept that which is To behold the contradictions of life.

28

Journey of a New Immigrant (1998, Still the Same, 1999)

Benumbed, eh... just floating along

The idle drift of the lost-unsought.
I am taken through the evening grumble
Of Toronto transit, where the underground
Merges with daylight - a blur of sight and sound
Six bus-stops east, another bus-stop west.
I am lost in the tunnel of under-mined talent
And I am not getting anywhere fast.

29

Bird

Can I make you stay, with my weak words

With this weak chain of my thoughts
This spring call of a tiny bird:
Can that hold you back?
You are the bigger, beautiful bird
Your plumage keeps you warm
You can fly across seven oceans
Or wonder about worms in far-away places.
As the season meets the sky, you can come
And go, I will be here, around this swamp
Chirping in my forgetful rhythm, for you...
Forever your most private place.

30

Culture Shock (Toronto, 1998)

What culture shock?
We all belong to the same human culture:
That is, looking at others from one high horse.
Culture shock happens to the other person
When it does, a lot is left unsaid:
He gropes in the wilderness of blank faces.

31

Hand of God

Survival drives us to moderation

Pin-drop short of the precipice, the instinct kicks in
And we see into the miracles within.
Absent that, it is just a rocket in endless space
Accidents everywhere
Principles and precepts clashing.
The thing that remains constant is compassion
For all, on this breathless journey And that I call the Hand of God.

32

A Petition to Love

Deaf ears enticed to the grave

I play the dead hero.
I am led to the cross.
It is finished!
The gods that kill the dog
Take away the sense of smell.
The fish swims in a pot of soup,
To meet your taste.
I am the seafarer without destination
Until I get to you. The rivers returning to the ocean,
My eyes are debris from a shipwreck,
Dragged to the shores.
Drawn to the end of the world
And beyond. Through the windows of thought
The end of my life is by you
To hear your voice in the distance of touch.
Drawn by your thunder, your name
A worshipper of your wonder
I live only to learn how to love you
How to call you.
Now, I reject all counsel, rebuke all fear
And walk through sounds of gunshot
Through voices and skulls in a dark forest,
Dead ready to find you.

33

Revelation

I wait for revelation

Too long, so long
To take stock of yesterdays
That can't be undone.
I wait for yesterday today
Till to-morrow:
What will it be then
On the day of judgment?
After it's been said and done
Pleasure and pain, lost or won
Maybe achieved, then forgotten
Hook or crook begotten.
What will it be
At the end of the day?

34

Contemplating Each Other

We stand by a streamside
Where past and present merge
Where the sun and the moon
Joistle for light
We fix our gaze on the rustling eloquence
Of water on the quiet rocks

35

The Deep Hole of Alienation

From the fullness of the heart

The tongue cleaves to roof-top
Thought retreats to an ocean
Of subconscious muddle
The phlegm of unspoken words
Silence the voice of a new world
The sleep-walker seeks rest by a street- corner
His laden dream surprised by light
The fighter stubbornly walks the tight-rope
To find peace in a deep, deep hole.

36

Death of a Beloved Uncle

A dark rain is our sleep, a cold sleep!

Sorrow serves us the flesh of death itself.
We little children! We little orphans!
It must be lonely
To be dying and thinking of leaving something behind We little children who may never know your pains
Or the meaning of your life. On your sick bed
Drifting irrevocably to the grey shores
Looking at hands that hovered over you.
And that instant when you sink
You alone can tell of sinking breaths
Hollow shadows and indefinite fancies.
For us, this joke is shattering.
The squint in your eye is not funny.
This distant look of yours make us lonely, too.
I thought I might notice
When the long ghosts come for you
But tears in my eyes, tears in my eyes!

37

Emotion

I sat by the murmurs of an endless stream

Of moments lost in distance. Now awake, now lost in a message:
Wake up! Wake up! I woke up ...
And walked the dark hours between one day and another
Between a listless course of action and a sleepy thought
I should sleep! forget it! But I got up...
And went out for the last smoke; beginning to think
How to break the habit? Just then, a thought came over
And said: "the ego is that does". What is that?

38

Want

When things we want die

And we are left to want again
We look between our own eyes
Through those our warm tears
To re-determine, re-create
From things that want us, that seek us
Like flowers in a garden, the delicate touch of hope
Signalling of new beginnings.

Seeking

As many thirst by the fresh rivers of plenty

Jose lost his way in the streets of his own thoughts:
How is that possible?
How is it possible to be lonely at a carnival
Seeking someone big enough to hide in,
When there is a thousand of us?
How does love end in sex
And wishes in wishful-thinking?

39

Work

The chicks and the hen are out

The machines are grating again
And my shoes are pinching to work.
I pass by an old maid cooking and washing
And another praying and looking up to the sky.
I looked up and heard the laughter. Of rain!

A World Of Plenty

In a world of plenty
Plenty go to bed empty.
Hope shivers in the cold,
The cold of idle wish.
God and good grumble
Through the long dark tunnels of sleep
To the slow dawn of another day
Another hope, for another world.
For now, these dry-eye lizards wait on the walls
Of high-fence mansions built for a few men.

40

Things

I owe them nothing

But to be myself.
A lonely place
Is decorated in wonder.
Then the romantic illusions of strange nooks
Nude sensitivities
Purple holidays in blue climates .

Passage

After all these

All this end in the beginning
Beginning everywhere
People move from others
Others move to people
From where people moved
To where they go:
There is a dark passage in the birth of stars.

41

Another Way To Live

I stand between poetry and existence

Inclined to die on my own terms
An outsider whose creed is love
A simpler good than god.
It is no cowardice, I swear
It is the courage to call the bluff
Of those who threaten you with life
That life which they script for you.
Or perhaps, there is another way to live:
Being dispassionate to both life and death,
To be majestically worthless, like a endless dream,
Observing and laughing at everything. Funny!

42

On Happiness

Have I ever been happy?

Maybe, some brief moments gone.
If that were happiness, it should still be here
Now and for- ever.
Many happinesses then I have known
Maybe, many moments of joy that became routine.
And I keep trying to retain them for-ever
The pursuit of happiness.
Maybe it is out there, owned by other people
This utopia owned by others, but known to none.
They say I must suspend disbelief
And then find happiness.
I can lie down in green pastures
And listen to the hypnotists building me a House
Of Happiness, with my own words, my own thoughts
If I repeat after them, The Pursuit of Happiness.
I can lie down in green pastures, marry seven virgins
And bear many children in a large house
If I just believe - If I work hard and believe.
They know, because they have been there.
They say happiness is in the mind,
But I don't have a mind. My mind is owned by the hypnotists
They own my happiness. It is out there, it is out there
In the Pursuit of Happiness.

43

Beggars

Is it time or its absence

That sustains these beggars,
Walking the distances of the city
Looking for signs?
And what If we are all like this,
With just a little bit more security?
We may be looking for the next safe tunnel
Where darkness is as pleasant as the moon.

Friendship

And then another day

Will brush, will wash
Will walk, will talk ... day after day
I enlighten myself by the strange faith
Of the friendship of dusk and dawn.

44

Life's Journey

Life's journey, an endless stream

Of signposts that continue into the night
Like a dream.
The hours tick away
To the next signpost; in the same endless dream
Though I am beginning to fall asleep on the wheels,
I am bound to this monotony of signposts
To this journey - until I crash!

Signalling

He tells her
She takes it
Hands touching
Faces hidden
Bit by bit
Silent as stars
From doubts
Un-annoying
But he lies
And she lied.

45

Flag

In talking peace, we listen

To the echoes of discord
The distant views posted.
In talking peace, we see
Symbols of ancient wars
Scores of sculpted smiles.

Purpose and Norm

The purpose of my life?

Divine, elevated rubbish
Dressed for god-worship
Elusive as the self-same gods
Of fashion or power
Deceiving everyone.
I seek not death
I seek not nothingness
I seek something ... outside of the self,
Outside of the norm
But the purpose of my life: I do not know
I do not seek.

46

Quiet Moment with a Lover

Times like this, at the bay of love's ocean, we are anchored

In each other's arms. We are glad that God leaves us alone
For a while - at the end of an endless world.
We touch without gripping. We believe without swearing
Just observing birds in the sky, some sailors gathering to leave,
Time slowing to a crawl, even the imagination flying slowly.
Are those silver shadows on the sprinkled surface of the sea?
We couldn't be bothered by the undercurrents of that question
We look at each other and see the face of god falling asleep.

47

Beauty

There is something rude about her beauty

A diamond even in light of day, saying
Money-in-my-hand, or damn your soul.
You try not to look, but
She is at the corners of your eyes
At the end of all your dim thoughts.
And there is nothing you can say
Your feelings stifled by comportment
Your passions re-mastered.

The Open Choice

You are god

standing aloof - invisible and calculating
And you are also man
Worrying why people whisper about you
Wanting recognition
Fearing to be read like a book.

48

Truths

The child starts in belief

The adult knows the half-truths
Between the skeptic and the atheist
The only death is no truth at all.
Things we know crumble in proclamation
As speeding vessels in the reality of a storm
The recesses of the mind is boundless
In laughter and in tears.

Power

The elephant wished for power

And God made him huge.
The ant wished for power
God made him silent.
Man asked for power
And God gave him intelligence.
"What is that?', he asked
And God gave him knowledge.
So, he asked for power
Over those ants and those elephants.
And God gave him all - the powers of creation,
Destruction and death.

49

Exhortations

In every desire and excess

Nature teaches us and molds us.
Omnipotent Nature waits on us
Like a mother, without wrath.
And it says, "One day at a time, my dear.
I will teach you, but only a day at a time".
Nature teaches us by acceptance:
Life exhorting without exhausting.

50

Demonstrating Mind

The mind is a far place

An endless journey into languages and places.
So are we born on that journey
By fathers who seek the gods, with sacrifices
And mothers who seek divinations in misgivings.
On that endless journey, we perceive fear
And thunder tears through our innocence.
One family huddles together, separated from the other families
Then the village yawns in the distant lightening
A distant language, a distant feeling.
And suddenly, a new road appears.
Fathers go out to find out about it, and never return.
Sons grow up and become fathers; daughters become mothers
And a new order, a new hope, is born.

51

Interlude (1990)

I am happy when i am happy

I am sad when I am sad
I live by my thoughts, or is it my heart?
I feel what I think, And think what I feel.
So, the secrets of my heart die, and live on after.
I falter, think and feel some more.
A hero that fights his own war
Lives his own death - or is it his own life.

52

Memories of E.

It was fun when we travelled without preparation

Just a handful of heart and memories.
Memories are flashlights on the past merging with the future
As they turn and kiss each other.
Days turn to worms and worms to sand
Washed up as waves on the shores - of us!
You always appeared with a handbag of dreams
From a watery raft, smiling and naked.

53

Sniff for Silence

Sniff for silence

I am exhaled from the memories of dying mothers.
I listen to the crossroads after midnight:
One o'clock, two o'clock ... so, so exciting!

Abstracts for John Oloko

There is no virgin womb in heaven

Divining virgin births
No style sculpted on immutable mountains
Nor insight rippling over boundless seas
No lost road, re-discovered
Where one definition ends all.
It is stone and fear and death
By faith persevered.

54

Putting on Airs

We are all putting on airs

Can't someone be himself?
It is cold here, and you know it.
We are shattered in the mutual mirror
A mutual secret is the hollowness of "us"
But we each claim to be alright.
Alright, you are the winner
In the game of secrets
Your secret, our secret.

Poetry and Love (for N.)

You said poetry is the mother of language

And drama the mother of action.
Our thought is word unspoken
Our life a search for sound
Yes, sound of action
Sound of thought.
So, read me a naked poem
A bank-brimmed surge of naked lust
A beachgoer's song of naked love.

55

Seventh-Day Adventists
Man shall not live by bread alone
But man must live to be alone.
I sit in front of my porch this week-end
Seventh-Day Adventist women are passing
Seven of them, immaculate, in white dresses And white underwears, I might add.

Celebration

I can hear the fireworks

Splash of butterflies
Rain of stars. Yes!
Joy is about to begin
Shouts of laughter,
And drums from the distance

56

A Feeling

I will jump off the space ship, and grab the wind
If that were Creation, I couldn't be asking, "What's the use?"
I will pretend that I have a goal
Even though I have no choice but to grow with the wind.
If that were the womb, I must admit, emotion is all there is.
Emotion of Creation, emotion of birth, emotion of hope.
Without these emotions, I am just wind.

Politics: The Long Awaited Leader

Self actualization tramps along beside the emerging nationalism

The secret strength of a placid penis rises: The Long-Awaited Leader!

57

Making Love to a Woman

We made love behind the raining windows

Remembering the forgotten moments
Of the other times before that
When we made love;
The moments of touch, when
Your nipples cut into my flesh
Your breasts spoke to me
Touched the smallest secrets of my mind.
O' Woman! your whim, your soul,
Coming and going these several seasons!

A Certain Kind of Sex

Her sheer innocence of her own beauty

Taunted the dog in me. Then she sent me to fetch some wool.

58

Invitation

You invited me in, to your heart

But here we are - silent.
We look into a face that looks away
We lean on walls
And look down our own feet.
The soft music bounces off, and falls.
No beds, no seats,
Just windows and waiting
For exactly what: we don't know.

Word for E.

She would I don't ask questions

Her silence a sea of sweet questions
The rippling of my thoughts make such sounds
In this secluded scene of male-mind and female-mind.
Experiences of past affairs fly away with the birds
As her voice entreats me, to feel the landscape
And the air, and the motions of silence.
She is here! She is here! My heart seems to say
As my hands move to her gesture and mien.

59

Sex with S.

Sex drives the high-jacked moments of my relaxation

And even the spur-of-the-moment. I forget the last one,
Fascinated by the next one - that moment of submission.
Sensuous dreams are sweet spices for hard thoughts
The sensation is the gain of forgetting
So much sex, so much variety of figure, to forget.
Sex is the thought of the first sex, not the last.
So many last sex. You, my first, you hold the secret
Of all sex. The secret river that comes and comes.

60

Realities

What I was before birth

That which others have planned for me
Then what I have thought of others
Which they are beginning to think of me
A stew of conjectures.
Now everywhere, there is news
There is fright and suppressed laughters
Where-ever I pass by people looking patient
I can see the traces of convinced suspicion.

Abandoned
After they kissed and made up
She thought he went out for flowers.
They had come a long way
twenty years to that day to that hotel
He just checked out and left.

61

The Other World

There is a world where love is god

Where true virtue is law
And children are taught by adult example.
There, where maidens sing - sweet songs!
Till tears of joy fall, and we sleep in the night
Of sweet dreams. A world of dreams!

Hope for Social Change

I hear children's voices from the dark

Speaking of the movement and hope.
Soon, the vehicle of change will come:
But, will they come on-board, or not?

62

War

Time lurks like mines

To explode on a bragging soldier
His blood spatters on the shattered mirror
Of his armoured self: whose war is this anyway?

Get Away

To get high and sleep

A slim escape to captivity.
A confluence of pleasures
An affluence that doesn't dowse.
You need more logic and luck
More than a moment
To get away
Beyond the several loves.

63

Mind

The inner man is the self

The inner clock, hastening, maybe
The mute thunder of conscience
Perfecting itself, is god.
An endless truth within each being
Is the will to life - in endless good and endless bad.
How-come is the endless question
Where-to is the endless reality.
A secret paradise is perfected in my heart
Life takes shape and becomes what I see,
Think and do. I wake up between yesterday and today,
From impossible to impossible.

64

The Fight

This fight is your destiny, champ

It will make you or mar you
Six months to go, six hours a day.
Then you can make the great speeches
Visit great places, eat great dishes
And water them down with great thoughts.
In six months, six hours a day
You must train for that one day
For your time in the ring,
For your name to be called Heck!, announced ! All time!
Every dog has his day:
This is yours,
This is life.

65

For a Kiss

Many days, for this day, have waited

I come to you, to mellow, and kiss.
Like the shadows of birds returning from sea
I come to you for an embrace
Humbled by my prodigal years,
The desire to return, for a kiss.

Up in My Head

Up in my head, there are mansions

With minarets thrust into the clouds.
I am the night sky, without boundary
That feels and knows omnipotently.
Such is the reality of the my dream
Which I throw down at your feet.

66

At Heaven's Gate

Well dressed for the occasion, I cut a perfect picture

But within, the doubt and fear, I felt like throwing-up.
At heavensgate, I forgot what the judgment was all about
And God took one look at me, and smiled.
What is He smiling about: this is not funny.
What is He smiling about?

Life Is A Habit

Death and sleep, they sleep together

And living is a habit
As rabbits are burrowed in the earth
So, depraved hands dig the abyss of night.

67

Friends

[Places we have planted love

We may reap in times of doubt]
By the lonely tides, listening to the sounds of water
Or when sleep takes us deep into the oceans of life.
Friends are the touch-sense in the woods
The soft, deep wood murmur I hear year to year.
The cat can bear his wounds alone, like the dog
Each retreating to his own quiet night
Resting assured of respect, as cat or as dog
In the bedtime of the soul.

68

Fear

I am afraid to walk the darkness

Of borderless darkness
Where there is no other man
The devil is there.
I am afraid to walk the darkness
In my mind, on tippy-toe ears A maniac,
Where there is no other man.
Self-defence is a quicksand of collective fear Living in well-programmed fear.
Nobody says we will live forever
When we know death and love it.

69

Unpleasant Pasts

The unpleasant past I remember without pain,

I can nurse with some fondness.
In privacy, I can indulge myself licking my wounds.
But in public, I still hear the hushed laughters,
That I think it is; or see orchestrated images of torture,
Or crooked darkness that brightens upon my approach.

Remember or Wonder

Is it wrong to wish not to have lived

Or to wish to slip away from all memory and judgment?
No-one alive can answer this question.
So we live to see, not to cease on our own
To faithfully seek an answer here
Why we live, remember or wonder.

70

Devil

I guess I can understand the need

As ever before, to personify evil.
It's got to be separate from the beholder.
It's got be hiding and running away.
It's got to be the other person's truth
And not the protection of our own.
Otherwise, we'd all be screaming, "devil".
And that would be chaos, won't it?

Need

And we who have words

Need the tyrant's act.
We robots of the hour
Need the eloquence of wine.
We the beautiful
Need the boldness of parrots
Telling us right is right
Because we will it - the power of good
Patient-love and mercy-justice.

71

The Love Affair

Day one on that fantasy island

Where the dizzy cloud is held up
By the dizzy passion of lovers.
The meaning is in the perception.
Standing before the mirror
With a generous imagination,
Bonding between empty spaces
And filling them up with chores of love.

The Fence

The fence is for those in

As it is for those out.
Those who keep me at arm's length
Keep themselves at arm's length from me.
The heart is a home or a prison:
You pack a bag and you set out.

72

Donkey

No need to live too long

To know life, and be quiet.
It is enough to carry the burden to keep quiet
Not to escape, nor concur, nor demur.
We keep quiet when we die
No need to live long to do that.

Nancy

As winds penetrate silence,

You come into my mind.
silence swallowed in distance
Another silence, in desire.
Nancy is my mind pregnant with silence.
You make me walk in the web of your absences
You swallow your passions,
Your secrets are tantalizing.
On my heart, my varnished poems are waiting.
Let me sin in your darkness
Let my flesh evaporate
As I feel out your contours
Picking fruits by your stream un-conscious.

73

At-Times

At-times is no time at all.

I sit in an empty row
And watch people, coming and going,
Oblivious of their feelings
As they are of mine.
I hear chatter-birds in the background
But it does not matter what they are saying, does it?
For men of strong views, It does not matter what I think.

Nature is Naked

Nature is naked as dangling breasts

We forget to question our urges.
You kiss away every memory, but you,
On this beach: breeze blowing, waves laughing,
Strolling - endlessly strolling - in your secret places
Listening like a sleepy, feeding, baby.

74

Rainy Day

Rainy day
Children playing
In the rain
Lightening in their eyes
Cleanliness all over.
It was that rainy day
You lured me to sleep
In your thunder
To lay down on your fertile shores,
Listening to the laughter of children
Seeing through the lightening in their eyes.

Mother's Day

By the hospital bed or the forest bed

Mothers watch over their children.
And when the infatuations have won out
Mothers watch over our civilization.

75

Nancy (No. 2)

I see those distant tree-tops again

Dancing to distant melodies.
And you dressed in easy abandonment,
Fingering my heart again.

Trying to Be

The moving stillness of sand being roasted

I tippy-toe on thoughts of perfecting the humankind.
I am only sound, smell, taste and touch
Trying to be, trying to be god.
My thoughts are the myths that I create
to create symmetry out of the infinities
Of time, distance and space.

76

For Wande and Laho

The seconds are ticking away

Picking crumps like feasting chicks.
The minutes are playing games
meeting or missing their goals.
The hours come and jump over
Each other, as days slip from our fingers
Into nights, and weeks stumble into dates
On a cross-word puzzle, of months, and years.

What a Joy

What a joy
To fill each moment with work
To fill each moment with life
To play well, work well, digest.
Pleasure after work,
Work after pleasure,
Good tools for good life.
What a joy.
When it rains on a dusty road
A harvest from hardwork
And love for love
What a joy!

77

Duty and Sleep

Sleep is signal for dream

Plans and action are dreams knotted
In prevaricating steps and in myriad beginnings.
Sleep is the signal to know myself.

Examination (1985)

When judgment is near

The heart-beat regulates time
Tick, tuck, reading, tick, tuck, sleeping.
When the exams get even closer
You start sleep-reading and percentaging
A mad man need not be told it's a stampede.

78

The Lion

The Lion
Brave and strong
Your roar electrifies the forest.
The Lion,
Even in death, your aura intoxicates
Folks feeding on your corpse.
The Lion
Caught by a drag-net
Sentenced to the zoo.
O' Lion
They gather to watch you
From their barred distance.
And you blink slowly, as the Lion
Husband of the Earth
Monument of the gods.

79

The Desert Wasteland

This wasteland, of sand upon sand

As if water dried into a vast ocean of sand
And sinking becomes sand, trekking
Through the vast ocean of wanting water.

(untitled, 1985)

In life, I go on
After-all, it's not long.
Please pardon me
If I wrong you.
But if you can`t
Then, I can go on.

80