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 slavesOf a world free
Of kings and queens
And other remnants
Of an arbitrary pastOf earth
With no sharp north
Or deep south
Without blind curtains
Or iron wallsOf the end
Of warlords and armouries
And prisons of hate and fearOf deserts treeing
And fruiting
After the quickening rainsOf the sun radiating ignorance
And stars informing
Nights of unknowingI 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 cursetraded pleasantries
with the banker
disarmed the sentry who
trembled like a rattled leafcrashed into the courtroom
kicked out the judge
sentenced all the books
put justice in its pocketpurchased
seven stones
seven men
a dozen trivialitiessauntered through
the palace gates
threw out the king
consumed the crownthen 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 floodsAnd levees which toy with
The murderous fury of raging waters;Footless floodwalls, the dirt and dust
Of dykes which mock the humourOf the lake... Lost lanes. Beaten boulevards
And the Crescent City sprang a breachIn its arc. Sick now, my favourite pharmacy,
Starved, that grocery store which stunned my gazeWith sheer cornucopia. Pale, the pump -
Kin colour on the face of the moonThe museum has lost its muse
The library its lore of lettersBut sick, not dead,
This betrayed CityDeserted,
Not forgottenI can hear drum taps in the distance
The sexy serenade of the saxRainbow umbrellas in the evening sky
The penitent after-Mass of Fat TuesdaysFlood-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 roostEven as the aroma of gumbo joints
Sweetens up the laughter of the streetsThis 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 slaveThe 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 roadCauterized with his colour
Crucified with his creed
Taunted with his tribe
A skinny neophyte with an African nameSent Hope on an unprecedented errand;
The world rose in assent
The sea was never the same again.
A rainbow union unchained the skyEngulfing the monochromatic mantra
Of skin-merchants; plural illuminations
Ascended, giving name and nous
To all that was dark and cruelly hiddenNew dawn, new dusk
New possibilities, new visions
A common language outspeaks
The shibboleths of bygone daysA new truth is coming to Power,
Supple, cant-free, intelligently fluent:
Compassion is not out of fashion
Difference is no disadvantageA palace, black-built, white-named,
Has encountered the rainbow touch;
No longer through the back door:
The people are more permanent than the paintSo 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 fearYes, We Can
The world sings from pole to pole
Yes, We Can
The future says Amen to the audacity of ChangeThe Dream . . . fleshed forth, at last;
The prophecy came to pass.
I can see Atlanta's uncrowned King
Smiling cautiously in his resting placeII
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 treeNot stirred by its breeze
No tongue in our world
Untouched by its magic accent
From Kisumu to Kingston
From Melbourne to Mumbai
Wherever every dawnThe 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 rousedThe earth to wheat and wisdom
The mountain heard it and shifted a foot
Rivers gambolled uphill, unstoppably keenGrain after grain after grain
Beach sands glittered into gold
The galloping tide arrived withIntimations of changing waters
Northern trees surprised the season
With the magic of a winter blossomAn unusual melody rides the music
Of this name. How can its poetry
Survive the prose of platitudinous politics?