The poem:
ORI AGBE (For Wole Soyinka)
– Akeem Lasisi
I
Because there may never be a second night
I shall plant my tongue in the soil of tonight
I shall construct a castle of words
As an eternal monument for a sage’s birth.
Emo rat rises healthily in Opo Ile
Aferebojo rises healthily in its hole
Whether eku emo rises well or not
Once Soyinka rises well the deed is done.
11
Let me kiss the waves to gain the pulse of the Nile
If I can touch the tail of your dansiki,
My craft will never remain the same again
If I can touch a strand of your silver hair
I shall win a multitude with a single poem.
111
You will lend me a sacred pun
To jerk up my Commonwealth poem
I want to borrow your dictionary of myth
Where a hen lays nothing other than eggs of words
And the rain that comes from the bowel of the August sky
An infinite scroll of Nobel rhymes.
Chief Kongi,
You hear my voice or not?
If I were a woman,
If I did not marry you because of your cheek of a hunter’s wife
I would marry you for your shiny beards of a squirrel’s tail.
1V
But in spite of the flowing wines of your glorious birth
I shall open a can worm of subversive truth.
The parrot privileged to come of age
Will tell different tales of our changing times
Olugbon’s prosperous reign,
The fields were draped in an egret’s frock
Aresa’s historic reign,
Draped were the deserts in an egret’s frock
But these dragging eons of Jagunlabi’s dynasty
Thunder-retinued vampires howl across every nook and cranny of our shivering hills
Houses concede their heads to tenement storms
The smith has lost the memory of the anvil
And I the chronicler of tides,
I sing about in kwashiokored feet.
V
I implore you the sage of the night
Savour my songs with Solomon’s mind.
My teeth I know are rotten
If I break kola nut with them you can shun
But when I break with them a single poem,
Give my stinking mouth a second thought.
Democracy is a cake of prosperity
Universally eaten with the teeth of give-and-take
But in the toothless mouth of my country’s heroes
Democracy is a chronic bone that never cracks.
VI
For the sake of fish for their pot bellies
They have set ablaze the family grove
For the sake of fish for their pot bellies
They have killed the pond with chemical greed.
VII
Now that you have climbed the mahogany of age
Share a bit of our festival wine
And shed some light on the riddle of The Road.
The world is building an amphitheatre in the centre of the moon
But six decades after,
My country remains the protagonist in the Dance of the Forest.
The rain is punctual,
The sun is prompt
But right before our teary eyes
Kongi’s Harvest has blossomed into national drought.
VIII
Only yesternight,
We accused Tandi of dacing awkwardly
But right before our teary eyes
Tandi Tandi has taken over the stage of dance
Only yesternight,
We accused the departed of an untimely death
But right before our teary eyes,
The pall bearers have missed their way to the burial ground
Aaa, now that you have climbed the mahogany of age, Soyinka
Share a bit of our festival wine
And shed some light on the riddle of The Road.
