by
Noel Ihebuzor
What you saw
You say you saw
patterns heave and dance
you say you saw them
Weave and leave
No one else says they saw
what you say you saw
just you, with your diamond
periwinkle eyes
at the three quarter corner of night
when straggler angels
flee the light of the returning day
Yours was a vision
Filled with emptiness
Where bleached blankness
Empties all other visions
New Jungles
The jungle always,
half dormant
wakes up and a new day
dawns, slowly
Sounds soon crowd out silence
prophets see dimly
but their rising voices
Soon outdo agberos
In this space,
a life is worth
three and one third sparrows
In this place,
men combine religion and region
creed with breed in the service
of a contest fuelled need
their sordid deeds
sustained by their greed
Locked in their frenzied contest
the wrestlers have locked out sense
decency lies in locks
the present overwhelms the past
drowns the future
and yesterday’s smiles stare
stir and startle in today’s tired sheets
Uncertain saints
Self beatify, uncertain of outcomes
as uncertified foul odor
floods the present
The stench overwhelms the air
that was pregnant with a hope
nourished by dope
stunted elves dance and sway
waving a medley of signs and symbols
crescent, cross and stars
and I sensed I heard the moon howl
Predators now prance like Simba
the lion king
the story teller casts
his charmed beads around legs, heads
hips, feet and heels held by hope
but fettered by dope
Reflections 