This City Will Not Die and other works by Niyi Osundare

 

New Orleans/ Nigerian poet, dramatist, critical essayist, and columnist, Niyi Osundare was born in Nigeria in 1947. He is Professor of English at Universities of New Orleans and Ibadan. Osundare is an intensely political poet and a vehement champion for human rights. His award-winning Selected Poems were published by Heinemann in 1992. Osundare's more than two dozen books include his most recent collection of poetry, Days (2008).

 

I Sing of Change

"Sing on: somewhere, at some new moon, We'll learn that sleeping is not death, Hearing the whole earth change its tune." - W.B. Yeats

I sing
Of the beauty of Athens
Without its slaves

Of a world free
Of kings and queens
And other remnants
Of an arbitrary past

Of earth
With no sharp north
Or deep south
Without blind curtains
Or iron walls

Of the end
Of warlords and armouries
And prisons of hate and fear

Of deserts treeing
And fruiting
After the quickening rains

Of the sun radiating ignorance
And stars informing
Nights of unknowing

I sing of a world re-shaped

 

Not My Business

They picked Akanni up one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep.
          What business of mine is it
          So long they don't take the yam
          From my savouring mouth?

They came one night
Booted the whole house awake
And dragged Danladi out,
Then off to a lengthy absence.
          What business of mine is it
          So long they don't take the yam
          From my savouring mouth?

Chinwe went to work one day
Only to find her job was gone:
No query, no warning, no probe -
Just one neat sack for a stainless record.
          What business of mine is it
          So long they don't take the yam
          From my savouring mouth?

And then one evening
As I sat down to eat my yam
A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.
The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn
Waiting, waiting in its usual silence.

 

Roaming

The dollar
walked in
green-eyed
crisp like a curse

traded pleasantries
with the banker
disarmed the sentry who
trembled like a rattled leaf

crashed into the courtroom
kicked out the judge
sentenced all the books
put justice in its pocket

purchased
seven stones
seven men
a dozen trivialities

sauntered through
the palace gates
threw out the king
consumed the crown

then hit the marketplace
a slow hurry-cane
with a riot of praise-singers
and dwarf stilt-dancers

 

This City Will Not Die
(Jazz Background)

And yet this city will not die

Though prostrate now from
The poison of presidential floods

And levees which toy with
The murderous fury of raging waters;

Footless floodwalls, the dirt and dust
Of dykes which mock the humour

Of the lake... Lost lanes. Beaten boulevards
And the Crescent City sprang a breach

In its arc. Sick now, my favourite pharmacy,
Starved, that grocery store which stunned my gaze

With sheer cornucopia. Pale, the pump -
Kin colour on the face of the moon

The museum has lost its muse
The library its lore of letters

But sick, not dead,
This betrayed City

Deserted,
Not forgotten

I can hear drum taps in the distance
The sexy serenade of the sax

Rainbow umbrellas in the evening sky
The penitent after-Mass of Fat Tuesdays

Flood-scorched trees will bloom again
The wounded oak will stretch its limbs,

Its mossy beard astir in the wind
The birds, long gone, will return to roost

Even as the aroma of gumbo joints
Sweetens up the laughter of the streets

This City will rise again
This Big Uneasy, this neglected treasure.

 

Obama

". . . a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous"

"The world has changed. . . ."

 

              I

The hand that once picked cotton
Has grabbed the crown
The whip which once cut like hateful blade
Has become a wand in the hand of the slave

The path to this moment was snared with thorns
The climb stiff, unspeakably narrow
But History waited, as always,
With a riddle at the bend in the road

Cauterized with his colour
Crucified with his creed
Taunted with his tribe
A skinny neophyte with an African name

Sent Hope on an unprecedented errand;
The world rose in assent
The sea was never the same again.
A rainbow union unchained the sky

Engulfing the monochromatic mantra
Of skin-merchants; plural illuminations
Ascended, giving name and nous
To all that was dark and cruelly hidden

New dawn, new dusk
New possibilities, new visions
A common language outspeaks
The shibboleths of bygone days

A new truth is coming to Power,
Supple, cant-free, intelligently fluent:
Compassion is not out of fashion
Difference is no disadvantage

A palace, black-built, white-named,
Has encountered the rainbow touch;
No longer through the back door:
The people are more permanent than the paint

So much to build, so much to re-build
In a world laid waste by war and want
And the cannibal greed of the corporate cartel,
A season held hostage by hate and fear

Yes, We Can
The world sings from pole to pole
Yes, We Can
The future says Amen to the audacity of Change

The Dream . . . fleshed forth, at last;
The prophecy came to pass.
I can see Atlanta's uncrowned King
Smiling cautiously in his resting place

               II

O-b-a-m-a

Destiny whispered that name into
History's ears. History gave it to the wind
There are no leaves on our tree

Not stirred by its breeze
No tongue in our world
Untouched by its magic accent

From Kisumu to Kingston
From Melbourne to Mumbai
Wherever every dawn

The sun opens up the eye of day
It is the crystal drop on the crown
Of the morning grass.

The passing cloud heard that name
And discharged its rain
Drought-time over, the season roused

The earth to wheat and wisdom
The mountain heard it and shifted a foot
Rivers gambolled uphill, unstoppably keen

Grain after grain after grain
Beach sands glittered into gold
The galloping tide arrived with

Intimations of changing waters
Northern trees surprised the season
With the magic of a winter blossom

An unusual melody rides the music
Of this name. How can its poetry
Survive the prose of platitudinous politics?