Koko House

Conceive you were carried

While happily you delivered

With impregnable retrospective nostalgia

In the days of yore you appear

Greatest minds hero degree

Impregnated with Spartan pedigree

Ho! Rubicon you swell and graduate

In the belly you grate

You were thought and mapped out plain

And station amidst the domain

In the noble batter change

Everest Kilimanjaro apex and peak

Among unequal you sit

Of no reason you compete

Your mother was noble

And your essence unequal value

Your blush steadfastly stare

Of the indelible posture you are

Indestructible classic-modern image 

Unequivocally planned at vantage

Your imperishable immortal exhume

With indelible scar in the psyche of whim

Born of fanatical invulnerable jingoism

Of the premier, the planner patrotism

That linger in the  abdomen furrow

Of mind thrillers and Apollo

Your gauntlet Achilles of trick

With myopic helper in herculean task

You wade through passion earn quandary

What a shallow psyche of misery

Visionless, selfishness, parochial dreamer

With the paddler of titanic canoe sinker.

                                                                   - Mattew Bisi Adewuyi

You are Merciful

You looked upon me with pity,

From your exalted throne you make me a deal,

At the rage of the storm and the annoyance of the sea,

My hiding place becomes open to the nakedness of the cosmos,

My enclosed haven flushed away in the flood of anger.

In my distress I called up to you

From afar, I beheld an unseen seat man has never seen,

I sought your face but it shun like the sun,

My bulls and calves smelt like fresh carcass before thee.

I thought of which way to follow, which measure to apply,

Until I saw the path of different colours in the sky,

Now I received a purity of tame water,

 Water different from its antecedents as in the days of Noah,

This baptismal water saves; this storm of sea destroys,  

The destructive water now conceives this constructive river

Where filthy garments are washed clean,

And the deceptive wilderness yields fertile seeds to eat,

In yours mercies O God! You give mortals a soothing bliss to live.  

                                                                   - Babajide Micael Oluwasegun

A BLISSFUL FAIR TO ALL MEN.

Another year as fresh as a leave, shoots,

Another year as pure as an infant with amoral conscience is born,

A blessed year born for us men is now here,

Let us all nurture it so dearly,

For we all can enjoy its newness.

With priestly inks and prophetic lips

I wish us all, good princes of our new king,

A blessed fair and victorious sail on this new sea,

Despite the intrigues of our adversary the beast,

The king whose birth we celebrated will give us the scepter of triumph.

WHO CALLS?

A gentle but imperative word called onto me,

So subtle but instructive is it, that I can’t resist,

Yet, my fleshy whims protests, my human frailty weakens,

That in reluctance, I gave deaf ears to this voice that beckons.

All through the day, I became bothered with trouble,

That all that echoes in my head is this incessant voice calling,

I did all I could to obstruct its persistence with various headsets,

Yet, these devices couldn’t block my heart from this call that pleads.

I got to the holy land to observe my religious rites,

I paid respect to all our elders and humbled before my dibia,

To my greatest surprise, his face shun like a rising sun,

Then, he gave a pastoral sign telling me to listen to the sky.

I ran to the shrine, racing for solace,

At my arrival at it entrance, I was halted by a sign,

I saw sexual acts been spread as a sheet before my trance eyes,

I yelled and screamed; tears streamed my eyes like a troubling river.

What a great awe, I felt a motion across my paths,

My head swell, my limbs shivered, I couldn’t understand,

I knelt on the ground because I became blank,

Then I heard again my beckoning sound

That chased me from the city brothel.

Then, I got a fire straight into my larynx,

I began to prophesy in a way I didn’t understand.

I fell prostrate at a blazing flame I couldn’t find sight in,

Then it spoke to me with parlances I found so hard to understand.       

 SHALL WE LINGER IN FOLDED ARMS?

On this ancient soil were various societies formed,

Formed societies that became reformed by communal ethics,

Communal ethics that formed the basis of our village laws,

Village laws that have brought us thus far, leading us a right.

At the pioneer of white ideas, our racial hue was sidelined,

We accepted these white norms, succumbed to western cultures,

We neglected our rituals and embraced theirs to survive,

Now we enjoy the bliss of being Christ like,

Though his genesis was commercialized.

At first, ignoramus we were of his importance,

All knew we of him was him a better God than our ancestors,

Who delights neither in sacrifices nor blood offerings,

That made us oblivious of our rights as heirs of his palace.

Which we became entitled to, at the incarnation.

Now, profane dealings eat deep into our religious fabrics,

Torments and sufferings now take a passionate partnership,

Into the world’s businesses and it dwellers,

Yet we sit with folded arms placing our palms on weary cheeks.

What a slight on our spiritual efficacy crowned on us by the king,

I crave you great citizens of heaven that relish this piece,

As rescued slaves from the captive of idolatry and sin,

We have been enthroned on imperative thrones to make decrees,

Let’s in hymns of intercession sing to the sky deliverance

From

This Egyptian land on whose soil our officials have settled us. 

HE KICKS OFF.

Now that he has been born,

Now that all his ritual requirements have been done,

Now that his parental breeding are now over,

He becomes ripe for the world,

His ministry in no time kicks off.

His forerunner laid in captive; hidden in a penitentiary,

He laid in dark walls; endures the cruel royalty,

Until his head was relieved off his neck,

And a royal blood with split; a prophetic tongue was silenced.

But while this royal son abdicates at the law of this natural course,

While his pastoral themes were put to a test of silence,

The Lamb of God brought with himself unconquerable feats,

That endured with him till the tamat of his ministry.

He needed prolific hands with willing hearts,

Yet he found a few

Committed

Though one had hidden agenda,

Still, he didn’t prevent his fate

That was to be with this fellow’s betrayer.

                                  - Babajide Michael Oluwasegun

VESSELS OF CHANGE

Alo!

Alooooo!!

Alooooooooooooo!!!

      In a planet of thinking dust,

      Once dwelt a single man and wife,

       These gave birth to replica offspring,

       Products of predestined couples, they bore,

       To cause a continuity of the ‘’mythos of the spring.’’

At this age of antiquity,

There dwelt only one heritage and being,

Relations wedded relations; brother wedded sister,

This endured for long,

Until that ticking time,

That hour of confusing jobs,

When the universe was dispersed,

And multi lingua franca was born.

        Time sailed past time,

         Hour swam through hour

         Years spent through year

         And man exodused into this contemporary time

         This our time of nostalgic lass

         Our ‘asiko’ of almost pretty queens

           Now in vogue, men and lads of sagging pants

           Asiko wa lawa,aye yi a je e pe

We are the brands of innovative giants

We are refined models of sophisticated jewels

We are new technologies sought by all

We are youths, hoping in mind to be couples

Fine from my cradle

I was a lamb of spotless skins

A hind of enticing ribs

A deer of captivating graphics

Once in history, I was pure like an olive tree

Original like the universal nature

My feminine maiden endeared me with motherly milk

I found succour and serenity in her woolly caress

That even when the sun rages and bites

And the weather climate finds inimical caprice

My skin becomes even fresher than a green leaf.

But now, civilization and fashion have annexed me

Artificial beautification has reigned empress in me

On my facial orbit are found different colours

My face is now a canvass for artistic decorations

On my feet are gladiator boots pulling me higher

Taller than even my natural height,

My skirts are now tattered rags

For I need to Google my husband.

Great I must be

Like the wit of Romeo’s romantic skills

Fine like the cadets of fire

Elegant, tall and handsome like the son of Kish

Who later became the first king

I nurse the zeal to bring to my feet

A legion of pretty damsels

 A swam of cosmopolitan fishes

By the river bank I shall sit and watch

At night, I shall hope to hook them with my bait

Hope to entice them with my swags

From my lips shall shoot forth kisses of rhetoric

In my heart are venoms of deceit expelled

Sweet tongue and horny lips are my oral devices

I need to be ostentatious and displayable

From me, God’s work of art shall be admired,

Those were all the songs I sung,

Yet upon all my showy advertisement

I still retain my bachelor status

Send forth home your wandering thoughts

Into the womb of nature; the cave of salubrious succour

Look at your past and trace it to your present

See how you have strayed sway from your original lane.

When a mortal believes he’s wiser than his ancestors

They make a pawn of him,

From the caucus of the gods,

Are humorous rejoice jeered in the soil of

Intangible beings.

Children of ascending steps

Mount with care on this stairway

So that the golden pitcher on your head

Will not melt at the heat of tormenting toils

When salt loses its taste

 And the lion king trembles in his hunting valour

The hope of an auspicious crop is crumbled

The fill of the jungle beast is awry,

Pay heed lads and lass, that you

Don’t flash like thunder.

Vessels of Change,

Change is all the world entails,

Youths of nowadays linger astray,

But you are change agents,

Redeemed by the stain of the nail;

The nail that killed him unto that day.

Vessels of Change,

You should be changers of rusting vessels,

When the cosmos ends to its ruin,

A change must reign as an unexpected rain.

    Gird your paths; great youths of today,

    Today is your age; tomorrow might be your grey age,

    A grey age when strength is spent,

   When power is defeated,

   Reasoning has been diluted.

The race for you is still on a race,

   Relent not on the way,

    That you won’t be trampled on by

    Over ambitious race. Be Vessels

    Of Change,

    That you will stand. Unique, Fulfilled

    On that stage of the Litany of Saints. 

                                                          - Babajide Michael Olusegun

WE ENVISIAGE

By those instructive tools, we envisage,

Through our dogged alutas, we envisage,

Though our voices may fade and our revolutionary scolds derail, we envisage,

Though our fighting tools be blunt, and

Our warning flutes be dull, we envisage,

That victory may race up to us as the Scandinavian ‘’BEOWULF’’,

And triumph may cling unto our embrace

Like a virtuous bride who brings unto her hubby prosperity.

From our austere huts and sick beds, we envisage,

From our spiritual shrines and mediocre jobs, we envisage,

From our pedagogic classes where chalks fail to write, and

Markers are fading away with no moon for replacement, we envisage,

From our ‘’fueless’’ kitchens where our cooking stoves are redundant, and

In our houses where darkness is now light, we envisage,

From under the fruitless trees

Where moonlight tales are told by starving elders, we envisage,

That things will soon transfigure for the better, and bliss flourish in abundance.

Because lacklustre and cowardice will not make things go fine,

For we shall take the bull by the horn, now

We possess our destiny in our hands.

With us the rhetoric’s of our antecedents be our incantations,

The literatures of reason and revolution anchor our gatherings,

For as we match as one race and language,

Holding with us the imperial decrees of those great men as our legislative maze,

We match to that rocky palace built far away from the status quo

Of the suffering masses.

We shant be swayed by the aroma of tasteless meals, purging

From the treasury of the nation courtesy of inexpert chefmanship,

As one, we go to confisticate our rights hidden long ago

Under the cesspit of ‘’aso rock’’,

For we won’t be reluctantly fed with our resources they have made their birthrights,

For their transformational agenda are omens of the perilous times,

Our fates face the sinister romance fried as smoke fish in their pans,

We shall match in communion to resurrect our life buried seeds,

Laid with cruelty in the presidential morgue where it dweller meets with his cabals,

So, from there, we shall envisage our reformative JOSIAH

Who shall bring into our land an agendum that gives birth to classical agenda.

                                                     - Babajide Michael Oluwasegun

And So We Became Confused

And so it came to pass,

That a retain in the chain of hereditary rulers will reign,

And so it came to pass,

That what the verses of democracy

Actually is,

Is party autocracy.

At first we thought the saviour was a Christ,

At the cradle, we were fed fat with auspicious agenda,

Home to home canvassing,

Huts to huts politicking were the stratagems,

O! The infant hearts of the youths

Were seduced

At the administrative use of “ Fezbuk.’’

We could all see, we be held from our melting huts,

We were queued in mobs, on laughing paths

Where metallic tubes limp and shiver,

We submitted our rights “accord thumbs’’ stamped the suitable candidates,

We left our homes in en masse, willing to express our civil feelings.

We awaited the historic bell to once again yell,

We anticipated the royal decree to be read from the electoral “INEC”,

The pump of the heart blew an unusual tone of nervousness,

The beat of our feets rhythmed an eccentric cadence of alarm,

 At last, the oracle spoke; the kolanut visioned an overt divination,

It was the luck of the good of the flock of this cosmopolitan hut.

But alas! We became confused,

When repugnant voices rang the hymn of contention,

And we became confused,

When this umbrella now lacks the ability to cover,

And we became confused,

When these agenda became inimical and oppressive,

Our barns of yam are now empty,

Our jars of oil are now spent,

And we became confused,

And we are confused.
   
                                                                                      - Babajide Michael Oluwasegun