Ushering in the Eighties — Uncredited (Nigeria Magazine)

The mantle has left its last refuge of age
And fallen on a mere husk of thought
Whose sleep and waking and movement must remain
The grand puzzle of pulse and impulse
Instinct and inspiration.

Let me hold my peace for experience
is the best speaker; the heart has taken
its inventory and so the mind.
crwaling and crashing through falls and feelings
through terrors and tears
which no lip or eye can stand.

No wonder each life is a brave decision,
Each death a broad education.

And now that we stand on the edge of and judgement
Watching the solo and chorus voices,
The chants and cheers which man and women flash
Across the surging tides of bereavement,
Let the times tame our claws of grief
And hold out the siege of mockery,
Amputations of scabrous memory.

For we on this side of the scourge
Have a breathless appreciation of our deathlessness.
Our life’s sap is dust of soft palm leaves
Which speak like rain but does not cease
While silences fever passions and dreams.

The mantle’s manned, not swaddled in despair
The eagle-feathers have flamed the skull-cap
The air tastes of saltpetres of poetry
Which makes life grow wings where there’s none
And leaves the courage of an impenetrable smile
To tighten the face, lips and throat

Ushering in the Eighties

Gone are the years of the cicadas
and the feathered birds, darkling falter-
ings!
Gone are the quickening memories
of sun and sky, light and love!

The vine-wreaths are now dusty murals;
fingers of clay will be fingers of marble.