E SULE

parable of fingers

who says fingers are not equal?

fingers have understood

the frolicking paradoxes

of aremu-reforms*

in their vibrant acrobatics

in our europeanized market

fingers’ rapid legs

have trodden treasure of paradoxes

have crossed ridges of vast dreams

nomadic with untamed longings

who says fingers are not equal?

fingers are but equal

in this poetry of democracy

fluted through mystical rhymes

all hands pruned, all legs trimmed

modulated in equal rhythm of this chorus

fingers shall remain equal

on the lips of this reform

because they have authored wild paradoxes

in the wisdom of this reform

this parable of fingers

is a phenomenon of tongues

* Aremu is the people’s nickname, usually pejorative, for the Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

I knew how I died

I knew how I died

the day my pen went

in search of ink

and another death

when my teacup stared barren

on my workaholic desk

yet I was killed, dead

in the ticktock of that hour

postoffice stuck in mud of bizarre charges

I also spread my limbs dead

when the posted hope returned

publisher’s note: “not interested in CW”

now I am a man of four deaths

leaning gingerly on my surviving pen

bravely set against the remaining deaths

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Sentinel Poetry #32

ONLINE MAGAZINE MONTHLY. JULY 2005. ISSN 1479-425X