NFORCHE GERALD
BOTTLES HAVE BECOME BIBLES
I
Bottles have become bibles
In clench of drunks who babble.
Watch their lips quiver
Like some flibbertigibbetic bastards
While shaky hands transport dose after dose
Of the sedated beer to shuddering lips.
Watch them sing and giggle, watch them mystify.
Gutters have become homes
To drunks who grabble
As urine pours throw python penises
And shit flees through beer stained buttocks.
Oh, and they stagger like drunken winds,
Their eyes cocking in lust at every heavy bossom
And every extravagant breast,
While drunken lips hallucinate-
‘mama, one night na how much?’
Then they belch like hungry whales-
Their eyes darting in desire like vampires,
Their brains reduced to pitiful fibres.
Trentetrois and Guinness, the new anthem-
Smirnoff and Booster, a new stratagem;
The bars fuller than Christ’s home,
The republic shattering under the beer curse:
The Cameroon beer.
Children starve, emaciate and weep
The wife having no keep
As she awaits one Cameroonian standardized
And famous drunk.
There he comes staggering
Urine escaping bleached jeans
While emaciated lips sing in queue:
‘’afofoweti I do you
Afofoweti I do you,
I take ma money I buy you
You take me nakam for down.
Spittle urinated by beer invaded lips,
As he wobbles along with sheer pride-
Proud to be a up to Cameroon standards.
II
The baby strapped to the contours
Of its mother's lust deformed back.
One innocent Cameroonian
Shaking in fear and distrust
As a shameless mother rocks
To the rhythm of stale Makossa
And Tabooed Bikutsi
And to the bleats of Coupé Decalé,
And winds her inflated bossoms
To the thrill of malnourished drunks,
And jittles her Medusan breasts
To the confusion of drunken admirers.
The baby wide-eyed
Fed with beer from the opiate bottle
And then it begins to giggle and writhe
And is silently withered and brittle
As it struggles to clutch at the bottle
From which a vampirical mother
Had it beer-fed in its beer tutorial lesson.
The disgrace it is
As beer seizes over the politics
Of the republic
Like a merited birthright.
“TO OUR POLITICIANS”
We are not different from toilet tissue
Used in cleaning shit-smeared buttocks-
Those of you unabashed politicians
Who proliferate our ears
With gargantuan lies
Croak with breathe-taking professionalism
And awe-inspiring stratagem.
You these jigsaw creatures that deceive our mothers
With soap and blood maggi
As if our mothers whom we suckled are sheer beggars.
Your voice rise again
In their well crafted holy sermon-
“Vote for me and have tarred roads!”
Begging us to one again
Place you in comfort and wealth
While we are used yet again
To clean rot-caked buttocks.
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, 1787
(As recounted by Manga Ali Loé)
…I weeping for myself; fathers lamenting
Their arid bodies wrinkled from shrieking
Their voices screeching in ancestral pledge
Causing our hold to climax to a piteous dirge.
Light strained in through rat nibbled openings
Else we would have left the hold like blind goblins
Vicious to the point of abandonment
Scuffling for blood, mokala’s disbursement.
Aided by the scurrying light, my head worked
East, west, south and north, on shoulders, rocked-
Acquainting itself with the crampy hold
Taking in every detail for any bolt.
In long prodigious rows we humans lay
Meditating, some wide-eyed not to say
Tear tracks dry on our black paling cheeks.
They now submissive despite the reeks.
A cough here, a huff there. A groan here
A croak there.A curse far afield, a stifle near.
A prayer whimpered here, a shiver rippling
There. A horrid sight it was, a grappling.
Water poured from everybody pore
The heat, baking us dead, bringing every sore.
Merrying with itches that chewed our lean bodies.
The bugs tickling us to great agonies.
That pungent stench, from decaying beings:
Men awake whilst parts decayed in rings.
I was nauseated, my eyes reeling, pained
My stomach flaring to throw up content.
And as we baked, dehydrating, reduced
One of us would breathe his last, paying his dues
For all the pain, all the suffering
We found ourselves harnessed to, dying.
We lay naked save a pant to enfold
That bundle underneath, else it awoke to scold.
Rats, bugs, would have gnawed it to its doom.
Rats whose appetite could plunder a room.
And there they ran, hiking on heaving bodies
Playing hide-and seek- on chained enemies.
Tossing about, screeching on their suppers-
Causing a kick here, shrieks there, left-overs.
Ribs striving to protrude our very chests
To celebrate starving bodies in the nest.
Stomachs collapsing from malnourishment
Bones pushing at the flesh in enactment.
Yes! We herein lay, harvested far afield
Sealed in ebesse to another hill.
Is this it? Is this a blessed way to die?
Or am I neurotic? Tell me, am I?
The floor of ebesse was prepared from wood,
As was ebesse itself, which could suit
Only creatures of my calibre, a slave-
Oh! The cruelty of man! Who could save?
Right before my face, as I rested,
Was the base of another floor which nested
Human cattle, another slave battalion
Another prodigy of human abomination.
I cannot describe all the cruelties
That my eyes beheld, forget the casualties
For now: I would come to it. The light failing
Alluring mice to the feast, we whinging.
My wrists, throbbing were shackled to loops
My feet tethered a-pair to metal crooks
Which joyed at draining off ounces of blood-
Beckoning on foragers to the spot.
Elders bunks away cursing profusely
Rattling their shackles ferociously.
Lips hallucinating, the very name
Of gods to arbitrate from native claim.
Curses readily fell, bodies scattily smelled,
Voices rising to a trauma pitch like knell
Delirious we were becoming, menacing
Was our doom, our very bones throbbing.
As recounted By Tyack Joseph.
Boat: Adventure
Sails West Central Africa and the British Guiana
14 July 1787.
Slaves and masters turned due west, mystified-
But there upon their slave faces, satisfied
Like they’d invoked from primate spirits
This sudden gush, from some ancestral fits.
Man and beast steered themselves against the wind
As it thrashed in anger, pinching, knocking well keen.
And as I planted my heels and crowned
My head with hands, four ‘f my men went down.
The gush piped, roared like the devil’s own fun
Reaching for the bones like a murderer’s hum.
The trees bent in annoyance, sending leaves
To beat our faces, twigs gnawing for cleaves.
It felt like hands clawing me, savage
Ancestral hands, reaching for carnage:-
An ungodly mode for retribution,
Dead primates coming alive in motion.
My coat, well-tailored nearly shredded off my body
As I fought my stand, gnashing wild, not funny;
My interest stolen by some monkeys
Acrobatising in the thrashing trees.
A gagging sound reached my haired ears throbbing;
And I turned to find five gentlemen, kicking
In the shrubs, blood exiting a coat-
Before I could gasp, a hand was reaching for my throat.
Those arms chained a–pair reaching to strangle me:-
My blood ran cold and my fast reflex helped me;
My arm thundered from behind, meeting, pained,
A body, then a thud, then a shriek.He lame.
And as I turned to finish off the game,
While the tumult and yelps climaxed same,
Shots broke the air, nonchalance gaining.
When no yield came, a slave dropped, kicking.
Then the cacophony ebbed like the flu,
The wind now just a loose breeze, refreshing new.
Then we had the herd in order though rotten ,
Before identifying and cataloguing our fallen.
A sad catalogue we had; six dead
So soon, so young, from savage hands, their den:
Men who had come over the seas to hustle
But fallen by an alien zeal, heroic guzzle.
How would these families entertain such
Obituaries? Confused were we, auto-hushed.
Paul Johnson, motel owner from the coast,
Quatz Brooks, an English fellow, hand from Queen Boat.
James Breiser, a talkative from New York
Stretched on the grass, strangled by the savage flock;
Then there inert was Stephen Longfellow,
A good lad, about twenty two and no more.
Craig Sharks, the bully from Indianan county
And Pierson Reynolds; went with our obituary.
Sad was my state, as I gazed, so baffled-
The beasts, blood throbbing in their veins, shuffled.
My assailant with muscles like an ape’s
Kept grimacing impiously at my state
Pulling at his shackles, spittle flooding
His jaws, his muscles throbbing, twitching.
He could be worth maybe three hundred
Dollars and more out there if I were correct.
The guys would scramble for him, those sinews
Would help cultivate plantations anew.
This breed was rare nowadays; such muscles, well laced-
Veins springing on his pitch black face,
While indecipherable abracadabra
Sieved through bulbous lips as he fought in anger.
He was that who’d striven to ring my soft neck;
Those barbaric muscles reaching for my sudden wreck.
I would better die from an English rifle
Than be strangled in barbaric stable.
The few of my flock left and me, men from
Western prowess had to right this dark crumb
From savage hands. We had to send forth
To their savage brains, our anger and worth.
I could not let this get so cold and damp!
The savages had to cry out with cram
A reciprocity for our fallen.
The culpable we lined, their backs moistened.
And on their hides, our whips fell, fell, yet fell!
Breaking flesh, shredding skins during their hell.
Four of the bastards yelped, yelped in pain
My whip nonchalant, my face in disdain.
Their cries sent the birds screeching in fear
Their backs peeling under the whip’s share-
My contentment growing with all the warmth.
Yes! We were their masters despite the worm.
Extract from The slave’s Tale
............................................................
PAUL MOUAFO
MY HEART
My heart is in pieces.
My heart was once at peace,
And all I wished was to live in peace.
If only you could read my heart,
You would have made it a rite never to get rid of my heart.
Because bold is how I could describe my heart.
But now, my heart is in pieces.
And from then – till now, it is still searching for peace.
And I really wish I could get the peace.
But which peace?
Now I am pleased to see my heart in pieces.
Than to try to make it bold,
For someone to come and
put it into pieces again.
I don’t have a heart to love again,
Because someone has put it into pieces.
I swear! I prefer to see it into pieces,
Than to let it go into ashes.
My heart had once been in peace.
Then into pieces.
Now in some peace.
No! I won’t let it go into ashes.
Because I am not a phoenix.
MY SHEPHERD
He welcomed me with joy.
He caressed me with hopes.
He integrated me with faith.
Just because he loves me.
Can you for me, my sweet?
He reared me into the realm of comfort.
He pastured me into the pastureland of fantastic herbs.
He quenched me into the stream of eternal refreshment.
Just because he loves me.
Can you for me, my sweet?
He shepherded me into the tame grassy plain.
He sat and oversaw my siesta
Then in revel, he shepherded me home.
Just because he loves me.
Can you for me, my sweet?
He as a mother, ushered me to the route of mildness.
He as a father, urged me to adopt kindness.
Then, as a father, sacrificed for my gladness
Just because he loves me
Can you for me, my sweet?
Please give me an Access to GOD’s Mind.
Who will give me an access to GOD’s mind?
I need an access to GOD’s mind!
I will give all the wealth I possess,
And all that I will possess,
For an access to GOD’s mind
Why?
You ask me why?
Come my friend – think!
An access to GOD’s mind?
You are asking me –
whyI need an access to GOD’s mind?
O GOD! He doesn’t know why. Please help him to think.
I will tell you – ok?
I will tell you why I need an access to GOD’s mind.
Listen – ok?
Listen to why I need an access to GOD’s mind.
So – you want to listen?
And what do you want to listen to?
Do you believe that GOD is omniscience?
And that HE knows the past, the present and the future?
So, if I could have an access to GOD’s mind,
My life would be – with no stress.
I will, at least, know why things happen the way they do.
I will know the kind of mistakes that I will make in future.
I will know the troubles that will befall me in future.
So, thanks to this marvelous gift,
I will be able to immune my heart
and my mind against forms of trauma.
And also, I will be able to make the world a place to be.
I will tell people – how their lives will be.
And I will tell them – how all things will on earth be.
So that they will adjust their mistakes.
And make their lives on earth as charming
and delightful ashot cakes.
Okay, I see!
But why GOD’s mind?
Why not the babas’, or the marabous’, or the kemshies’,
ormami water’s, or even the stars?
why GOD’s mind?
“My friend, tell me, why you dull so?”
I chose GOD’s mind,
Simply because GOD’s mind
Is the source par excellence of all knowledge.
Okay! Did you get me well?
All I am begging you to do is,
To give me an access to GOD’s mind.
Can you do that for me?
But GOD, please tell me.
You gave us your breath;
You gave us your intelligence;
But why didn’t you give us an access to your mind?
My son, I didn’t because…
Life is a battle.
A battle never won in advance.
A battle which renews itself into different forms,
and into different aspects
A battle which never ends.
Tell me – my son.
Do you really want an access to my mind?
Do you believe that I am the ‘I AM’?
Then carry your cross and follow me.
............................................................
RAISSA MBIIN
SHE SAID NO
Despite the prevailing turbulence,
As though life has lost its essence,
She said No.
Though matrimony became throttling,
And having to submit always, stifling,
She said No.
Using her ingenuous vulnerability,
As passport for his promiscuity,
She said No.
Listening to neighbours’ unbidden tales,
Which often make her heart ache,
She said No.
Always nervous like a cat on a hot tin roof,
And feigning an eye sore when he throws an angry look,
She said No.
But after a careful review,
Resolving never to concur in their view,
And as though she were repeating her wedding vows,
She said YES!
LADY SNEER
Always pocking her nose to be noticed
Like a rock climber on a precipice,
Singing her own praises in all direction
Yet finding favour in no dimension.
She never keeps her tales out of school
If she learnt to put a sock in it maybe she could.
Oh my! She’s got a black eye
From the neighbor who just walked down the aisle.
The carpenter courageously made his intentions known
With a slap, she said “not with a toad”
But now she is in the family way
From whom, no one knows
And never more shows her slandering face
Since she could no longer bear the shame.
............................................................
DZEKASHU MacVIBAN
POETICS OF THE DYSFUNCTIONAL
With a post-punk braided Mohawk, she pushes
Her acoustic aptitude
Dream vendor
Caught within her own dream— within a dream?
With its labyrinthine twists and turns
At the verge of a precipice
But that is another story— Now, armed with change
M.J. doesn’t mean jack to her,
Nothing telluric does, now that
The streets are peopled with antediluvian Sodomites,
She says—
It is either black or white
No split personalities
No politicking, and above all
No poesy!
LACHRYMOSE ALSO TAKES LEAVE
behind the curtain of your eyes
there is silence,
drawing my tumultuous heart to
the salvation of your bosom—
behind the curtain of your eyes
the silence smites me.
yesterday I drank of your tears
the fruitlet of your pristine tear ducts,
riverine rivulets—the prelude to a flood.
............................................................
GIDEON W. BARFEE
THE VISIT OF THE BACCHAE
(For Adebiyisi, the owner of oracular words)
“I'll be glad to introduce the Bacchus of Buea
To Eluma, the poor Bacchus of Ibadan,
And his silent mentor, Silenus”;
The significant bard sang his vow,
Horn in hand, from the seams of Lagosian lagoons
To another – straddling the seven hills of Ngola and Buea mountain –
And a feathered drunkard too of the headiest brews,
From foams to dregs and from water to spirits.
For his sung oenophile, he guarded his chant:
“Two male moons, witnessed by clerical skies, have now gone by
And I'm yet to redeem my pledge at the shrine in Ibadan!
I trust your oracles know why such votive offerings often tarry,
But let no worry inhabit your tried house and your wise mind,
For didn’t I learn from our ancestral granite slabs
That “no piece of rock that falls off a blue moon
Will ever be larger than the earth”?
I will lead you to the sage Eluma’s old raphia hut
And you will witness his sacred beard drenched:
It froths white with the ages of well-tapped wines,
He will offer you the buffalo’s long and coiled horn
Seething with what smarts the mind and sizzles the spirit…
And you will cry: Haba! Aged Eluma, father of practiced tapsters,
What cola will I offer you in return for this vino-fest!
And you will hear my un-abstemious enjoinder:
What you will offer a deity, offer his messiah,
My stretched gourd never comes back unfilled,
Same for the cola that the cusped palm commands!
AGE OF THE CURE OF MY CECITY
Now, I can die
For I have seen the truth.
Last year’s calendar timed
The cures of my cecity:
My eyes, helios torched them
With medicinal rays – and
And I distinguished revolutions,
The bona fide from the forged,
Having been cruelly schooled by
Old Thucydides’ learned maxim:
Large nations do what they wish,
Small nations accept what they must.
This year on, I can now rest in peace
For I have seen the purity of light:
Am no longer duped, drugged
By filmed negatives of the sun.
NEWBORN, STILLBORN (OR GENESIS & APOCALYPSE)
We heard nothing,
Saw nothing;
Not even the sun –
And life began;
Without chlorophyll
Without (dawn’s) dew …
And without the elative vowel
Of a child’s purr.
We felt nothing,
Smelled nothing;
Not even the air –
And death began;
Without wind,
Without taste…
And without a festive aria
Of natal ululation.
SO REVENDICATED THE INDIGNADOS
Spare us ur speculative future
bring us back our certain yesterday
leave us alone with ur sophisticated futuristics
we want the fair equities of a simple present
spare us ur infinite gamble of our means:
that gluttonous rage of bears and bulls
the walls and streets spiraling the chimera of easy gold
leave us alone gold men and get sacked,
get john on the pier’s point & more gangs chased
stop banking on a mafia that rules the world:
usurers impounding ur flesh for every pound
they scammed u to foreclose, & that’s capital for u!
who cares about the great digit cults:
G8, G20…that’s duplicitous esoterics for u too
Spare us ur cures, give us just a slice of ur own health!
for every 1 of u, we are 99, yet u tilt the scales…
So,
Spare us ur speculative future
Bring us back our certain yesterday
BONUS -LAGOS UNDER LENS
The graphic windows of foreign eyes
Over Lagos,
A predictable iris over a broken lens
Over Lagos,
A predictable iris over a broken lens