by Noel Ihebuzor
Confess it and it is yours
and like Thomas, he doubted.
but time, loneliness and hunger conspired
and so with breath heavy and hesitant
He did and it was,
and he remembered your promise
anything you ask in my name, I shall give
He held on to your gift
with strong and firm fists
his heart was a rainbow,
his person a song as the days
flew bye, and the stars sang and every rustling leaf
sang to the chorus of his singing soul, “this Ndawi is a forever gift, no one can snatch it from him”
Then the gift slipped through his grasp
Silver through his clenched fists
And his heart leaked red tears
His soul drained, parched
his groan from deep down tore the
Soft curtain of the silence of the night
Should he shout his despair
on the crest of the ZUBA?
Should he mirror the broken spirit
of the savage whose sadness permanently
encrusted on ZUBA Hill incites
the sorrowful and the gay to pity?
And he seeks to soothe his pains with lavish
Portions of potions and balms of forgetting but
remembering becomes more acute the more he gulps and rubs of these
Should he now shout himself hoarse
in rages of hurt and despair?
and in between heaves and deep sobs
he longs for an anaesthesia for this tortured mind
a potion to change this jelly soul to stone
that can feel nothing, and therefore not hurt again
Every night now, he wrestles to release his frame
and his soul from the grips of his overpowering sorrow
mornings in well -rehearsed smiles he repeats
in a hollow and breaking voice
“Thy will be done”
And he breaks as he struggles to manage his pain
A song for onye obi omam
by Noel Ihebuzor
Do you know you touched me when you did not mean to
Did you know you saved me when you were not looking
And because you were not looking
you failed to feel my heart leap at that moment of rescue
missed to see my soul drip with honey, my body come alive
and soft warm flows gently fill me my being
Do you know how deeply you touch me with your warm voice,
and how with the slight touch of your hands you speak to my despair
how and so often with your soft touch you stop my hard fall?
Do you know how much you soothe my soul
with your warm voice and the reassuring beams of your smiles?
Can I sing what you do ……
When you hear my silent sobs even when you seem not to be listening,
When you feel my unspoken words and decode their deep syntax
When you read my silent lips from across the distances
When with a single glance you read my pain and
with a soft touch share my grief
How warm your kind gestures must boom to the deaf woman
When with your soothing and tender touch you speak your care
And stroke her famished spirit and stimulate the eardrums of her soul
And rescue her from the loneliness of silence
How colourful and full of bloom your touch must shine to the blind dancer
as she surveys your kind face in the flow of your hands,
when the love in your soul that your touch speaks
fills her mind’s eye with pictures of beauty and bliss
and rescues her from the agonies of the dark,
How warm and welcoming your keen eyes must sing to the deaf mute
When they follow and read his every voice and their modulations
and share in the labours of his limping speech
your compassion lends and restores dignity
warm as cover cloth in the harmattan night
feel his sweet thank you song
in the moisture that crowds his grateful eyes
in his subdued shy smile which celebrates your attention
How you deeply you touch me when you speak my words,
when you speak soft words
and when you lend me your voice and speak for me
and speak for those without voice,
when you listen with care, when you care to listen,
Do you know how deeply you touch me
when you speak words that only the eyes of the heart can see
the eyes of the heart sees deep and clear
the ears of the heart hear even the softest footfalls of footless spirits….
Soft words touch hard
Gentle kindness holds fast and bond
Unreflecting and unselfish gestures strike deep
Human warmth oozes solidly
And multiplies, even when we know not
and even when we are not looking
and even when we mean not
look over there and see a bridge of rainbows
listen and hear the strains of soothing music
and see the angels dance and sway
all because with a gesture, with a thought, with a word
without talking, without thinking
you touch me, you touch others
and you link and connect
and love flows…and grows…and soars
and multiplies …and liberates the soul, the body and the mind
and the echoes of your silent actions sing loud and smell sweet,
rising higher to the clouds
did you know you touch me when you did not mean to?
Noel Ihebuzor This is a song of gratitude for all those who rescue others from despair, depression, sorrow and gloom by generous acts of acts of love…..often without knowing it.
@naitwt
A song for Ndawi – Judge me well
A song for Ndawi – 1 – Judge me well
by Noel Ihebuzor
for Ndawi, who sleeps silently and softly in the soft and perpetual lights of His Love…..So many years have flown since I wrote this song….
Judge me well
As you see me through this great glass divide
frosted by tears, through this dim glass of infinity
that now divides us
As you now survey me from up above
Be not too hard, nor too harsh
judge me well
Remember me on resurrection day
the day when all bodies, the brawny, the frail, all still for years, will feel their sinews renew, their sinews refreshed and bones fleshed out, rise,
their soft sleep ruptured by the genteel warmth of rapture, the glass dissolves to reveal and reunite and,
You and I meet
You in your beauty and me different, frayed, strained
For I have strained under the weight of a cross, the cross of your flight,
your flight from family to infinity
I stagger, I struggle
I sway and retreat
to the limits that you have crossed
like an orphan out of time and out of place, lost in space,
waiting for the boatman, to cross me over
but with no coins in my pocket,
and even unwilling to board the boat
because of the obligations to your fruits and love
Remember me well
on the day the curtain shall split
and the separation line broken
and the still quicken,
on the day that the veil of separation
shall split and be flung aside
to reveal all in light so bright
Remember then that I never sold our dreams
not even for seventy in seventy tons of gold
Remember me on this moment
of your liberation and our reunion and nod….
I shall delight at that instance
in the light of your approving gaze that would reveal your soul’s joy and delight
in the care I have shown to the four
fruits of our caring and sharing
Four full seasons and and a month
have filtered by, whittling and
frittering away at the edges of my soul
but your fruits are fresh, full, firm and free
tendered by the same love and care
as always
Remember me well
for it is only in this garden of your labors
and the Eden of reminiscences
that I now cherish you
Remember me well
I grope around in unfamiliar groves, hills and valleys
But not in betrayal
I venture out not to forget
but to remember
I am in search of balance and equilibrium,
I am in flight from an anguish I feel since
your unscheduled flight on a one way ticket…..
Remember me well on your day
I have clutched to memories to support me,
I struggle to keep my memories fresh and free
for the moment of my own flight
All I now do is to be able to travel fully, healed
so that on the day of reunion
you may recognise me
Then as we rush in embrace,
at the blast of the last trumpet,
clothed in linen bright
remember not to judge me
rather remember to look over
and beyond and thank
and not judge all those who may have hurt me
and shower thanks and smiles
especially on those who have
helped me, helped heal me, helped me carry on
since you left.
A song for Ndawi – visions
A song I wrote some twenty two years ago
Visions
Your charm suggests the smell of fresh hibiscus
of the red rose, the taste of the ripe udala fruit
You hum softly in my ear
Your beauty drones in my head
Your absence makes you present
Your presence makes me absent-minded
I see nothing else
hear nothing else
feel nothing else
wish nothing else
How long will this be ?
How long will visions of you haunt me ?
How long will I carry the
cross of your presence,
now so strong in your absence
so pleasant to remember
and so painfully sweet to carry
How long?
A song for the uncertain
In search of certainty
do you feel me when you feel me
the way I feel you
like gentle rains on the dry thirsty earth
that sizzles with joy at each drop
and liberates a humming scent
which explodes, expands and then swirls around
everywhere and all over
humming softly like a delicate bouquet of flowers
I feel, I float and fly
when you feel me
you fill my person, body, bones and being
everything, everywhere and all over
when you feel me
and my eyes search your eyes for answers
your bright darting reveal nothing, speak nothing
to quench my thirst to know
whether you feel me like I feel you
when you feel me
Do you fool me or
do I fool myself
like the fisherman casting his nets to catch a full moon
as it floats on the indifferent surface of a lake
like the optimist hurrying back from the village stream
a raffia palm basket filled with water balanced on a wet head
tell me – do you fool me as you feel me
or do I fill a time bound need?
A song for short cuts and wrong choices
by Noel Ihebuzor Sunday, 19 September 2010 at 00:40
Lost in our greed and lust
we took the short cut and the road was longer
in our rush, in our grabbing rush, in our haste
we grabbed and broke the needle of the compass
and now turn round in endless circles and squares,
moving but getting nowhere and lost
and we missed the matter and still do.
Where the matter lies is where the truth lies,
the truth of a people lost in time, with lots of lust but lost in values
The root of the problem was the problem of roots
suspended roots, shifting roots,
dangling and swinging in the wind,
floating and drifting along in
and with the stream of convenience, like
an anchorless dream, like a malaria-ed dream
At the breaking of the road
we had a choice to turn to the truth,
to return to it and to begin again
to dig to where the matter lies or to lie
we chose to let the matter lie, to lullaby the truth to sleep
to finally lie finally,
hoping to suffocate the truth in the rich folds of our plunder
with the huge pillow cases of our loot
we urged the truth to die
and thus stilled and dulled the voices within us
we bent our tongues
and bartered our already battered and sad souls.
The road we walk
It appeared shorter, smoother and surer,
Easier, beckoning, enticing
but once our seduced feet
Set off on it
The road became long and longer
and our enlarging lust glued our feet to it
and we got stuck and sucked in
The ephemeral glitter, the vanishing flashing lights
left us lost, clutching our harvest of cheap gains
and dense chaff
eternal virtues abandoned
redeeming values jettisoned
Our lust locked us in, stills locks us in
and still locks us out
of our possibilities
and we walk and trudge along in loose losing circles,
muscles aching, limbs limp, souls sore
minds racked and feverish
our days now empty, our nights long and limp
A constant rush of rash
dull but disturbing lights invade our nights
stagger into our sweat filled dreams
these dreams filled with uneven riots and battles
In which demons and angels contend
For our souls and our wayward soles
mornings are stale and dark like the days
We trudge on
in ever widening circles and sterile cycles
in our fatigued state, we clump and stomp,
our alluring Journey’s end
now hazy, dim and receding…..
Outcomes from our feverish indecent haste of the past
now visit our present,
ghosts from our past,
they clamp our limbs like dead lead
And us, miserable us,
still blind, obdurate as if cursed
very reluctant to return
to the basics
to start anew
rather preferring to sift
the blowing and bellowing winds
for a harvest of fresh fish
A song on Peace talks
by Noel Ihebuzor
Pieced together peace talks ends. As we wave good byes, I see the short sleeved ex-combatant wave a long good bye to his long sleeved former foe, both now united by a bond of misery!
We sit across tables we once shunned
and speak smooth words with our twisting tongues
the same tongues that once shattered the face of the moon
as it slept softly on the still waters of the lake
We sit across tables in foreign lands,
the tables in our lands are broken, trust too we broke,
we stripped, shredded and mangled trust and truth,
barren stillness and silence now suffocate our land
the hollowing silence contrasts to all the rage and roar of battle,
broken then by the screams of fear of the wounded and the dying
by the sounds of guns and rifles and mortars that are now silent
We are empty victors, we sit and sign
and we soon forget the victims and their unmarked graves
and their un-song departures
for us victors, the dead are gone, no longer matter, invisible, just numbers,
cannon fodder in our selfish quest for space and place,
pawns in our power plays,
the poor dead, drawn from the pool of the poor,
seduced by fake promises of power and prosperity,
now reduced to putrid manure, and the survivors,
the living dead, twisted wrecks, shattered nerves and traumatized psyches,
red eyed, empty, battered shell shocked souls with broken soles, we
refuse to see, we deny
we are empty victors, we are the selfish victors
we speak peace in the sanitized comfort of hotel rooms in a foreign land
we shuffle across to shake hands with those we once shook fists at
smiling with awkward ease at the flash of cameras,
flashing as the flash of guns in the stillness of night on now barren battle fields
and waving as if in goodbye to our follies, to our failures, our frivolities
and saying sweet empty words with our slippery tongues,
measuring our gains, counting the inches and meters,
counting the post and positions and settlements
and posturing for juicier posts, aligning new alliances
invincible, and ever ready to barb and dismember afresh the dead who refuse to die
and obliterate and bury any stubborn living who refuse to die to truth and to cede to our ambitions
A song for the mighty
by Noel Ihebuzor
What has made snails take on wings
and to trade their shells for sails?
Why this rush and stampede by millipedes?
Is it the rumble of thunder or the dark heavy clouds
that announce the gathering storms?
Is it the flurried fury of the beautiful ones in their impotent protests,
Is it the rage of the innocent
or the growing wrath of the wretched?
A parade of childless mothers hurries by
and soon the march past of motherless children
carrying totems of their once impotent fathers to their lively graveyards
The silent whimper of the weak grows large
their numbers also grow with each passing moon
but all this is drowned in the strong assured voice of the righteous,
the correct voice of the mighty and the right
The raw raging roar of the mighty
rises high, hoarse and rough,
fills every space, crowds the air waves
announcing swathes of freedom, liberation, redemption,
victory and defeat
The voice that defines night and day
also defines right and wrong,
as it clearly and cleanly
sorts out the right from the wrong,
the good from the evil
all this with power, passion, and failing conviction
The voice of the right erases doubts, suppresses doubts
generously traces and defines lines and boundaries of dissent
and discourages all rational efforts
Who but the weak can distinguish expediency from morality in these climes and times
expediency, morality and necessity sleep well and deep
Strong assured voices waft to assert and to correct
and where the voices are not heeded,
strong arms move to assert and correct
scattering droplets of peace and planting the seeds of war,
Implanting signposts of order and the foundations of hatred and hopelessness
The lines are drawn bold and clear
Soon the standard bearers of the “evil ones” will lie scattered. in the dust of shame and defeat
while the standard bearers of the mighty and the right
strut around in celebrations of the triumph of good
soon the sparks from the voice and strong arms of might
will blight every sparkle from the eyes of weaklings,
will brighten the night with balls of flame
flames that burn, scorch and cleanse
and the deaf, and the blind, the lame and the weak
will swell in their numbers as the drumbeat and rumble and thunder of might arrive
The hymen of the neutral will be shabbily ruptured,
their emblems shredded soon to fly at quarter mast
as their voices and consciences wane weak
and their cowering voices speak with the same clarity of flames
from the wick of a weak palm oil lamp
The rising roar of the right and mighty wafts and floats,
grows and roars and soars
frowns at and drowns other voices
eagle eyes scan abroad for new signs of evil
The drumbeats and chest beatings become strident
Portending thunder from the earth and sky,
Announcing new storms, new downpours,
The approaching storms, the dark clouds announce the future,
they announce a harvest from which snails now fly,
lizards, rats, millipedes, antelopes and elephants are all preparing to fly,
all abroad and in search of strong wings and kind winds
And I too should now learn to fly or fry
A song against gender based violence
by Noel Ihebuzor
Short and simple – for the battered and abused –
“and the moon cried herself dark the night you battered me, the silent stars sobbed and the heavens rained tears….and frowned at your flowers of appeasement”
Flowers, presents, clumsy sluggish contrition
Wham, bang, in, out and over
Short, quick and simple
And with this short and insensitive flourish,
this contrived contrition
failings are expected to be deleted, even denied and wiped clean
the slate is made clean, ready for fresh battery to be scribbled on it…
A ritual of voluntary and selective amnesia
is once again re-enacted
on an over-burdened and traumatized victim….
this abused, reduced, confused object
this ravaged, ripped off, ripped up,
this maligned, denied, defiled piece of womanity
One for whom there is no longer peace
and life together empties her of all reason and rhythm,
save a rhythm rich in thuds and thumps
which deflate the soul
The camel’s back is strong but growing sore
and the woman’s soul initially deep and rich
is now growing raw and red and full of rage….
the seasons they come and they go
and the woman’s hopes for change
soar and crash with each season
the seasons weigh hard
soon the back is bent with sorrow
as the eyes are baggy with worry and self pity
slowly she counts her beads of sorrow
as she bids her time
as her soul beats and looks beyond the cage that is her existence
(somewhere in the hard-soft corridors of truth,
mute angels ask in a mixture of angst and empathy
“ how do pearls get thrown to swine,
and beauty to the constant stings of scorpions?”)
the mighty strong ignores the hunger and needs of the dove
and the soul, beautiful but trapped by ugly cruelty
agonizes with each passing day,
imagination and ideals slowly ebb away
hollow emptiness eats away the inside
the calm soul before, now battered by the staggering immaturity of the powerful,
by the still born imagination and emotional aridity of a partner
a clod, insensitive and immune to logic beyond the brawn,
beyond the mighty fist, the rod, the muscle
each day the soul is mangled by pangs of regrets
of an alliance without spice, without rhythm, colorless
and the once bright eyes are now sunken
dazed by impunity and slowly sucked under by her powerlessness
and the indifference of those around
and the clouds gather and darken, and swell…
and swell and soon to burst into homicide
and the partner blames the spouse,
the victim is the aggressor
and the partner massages an ever swelling ego and self-righteousness
with the puerile glee of the mentally challenged,
like one caught in the stasis of frozen and retarded adolescence
“and the moon cried herself dark the night you battered me, and the silent stars sobbed and the heavens rained tears….and all frowned at your flowers of appeasement”
Reflections 