I don't want to make money

I want to build a house
That will last for ages and ages
To be wondered at and explored
To be a shelter and a palace
A refuge and a shrine
A house to be yearned for in souls
That have wandered far and wide

I want to cure cancer
And abolish pain and maesectomy
I want to make the fathers see their children
And the children their children
And keep the kindred gods happy in their abode
Their abode bereft of ancestors

I want to spread cheer
And smiles across the wilderness
That now stretch from face to face
I want to share a laugh and a shirt
And add a shoulder to the plough
That adds another bushel to the harvest

I don't want to make money

I want to know
The fabric that keeps the eye
Glued to the head and the heart in the chest
I want to discover the strange songs of the stars
And the conversation of the rocks
Sitting on the roadside

I want to debate
With the sea crashing on this beach
Ignoring the oil and the egg
I want to call the wind howling silently
To witness my incantations for calm

I want to count my treasures
In memories shared of laughter and tears
And just the silence of hearts in rhythm.
I want to erect monuments to knowledge
And mercy and charity laid like a carpet
For searching hearts.

I don't want to make money.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Today is our anniversary

The sun rose today
as it always has
the night has fled before
the arrows of light shooting wake up
into our bleary eyes.

The sky is clear again
as it usually is
the clouds have sailed away
nudged on by the gentle breeze
caressing our damp foreheads .

The house is happy again
as it likes to be
the melancholy of loneliness
drowned in the chatter of new lives .

Our life is complete again
as it should always be
the simple joys we share
are all there is to promise.

Thank you for them.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

You will still be here

I am standing here
Like I always do
Staring across your watery leagues
Wondering where this wind comes from
Now salving my dry skin
Now raising my rumpled cape
And now driving this tumult.

I close my ears here
Like I always do
And still the coursing blood
To a crawl and to a trickle.
I listen to your growls and slaps
To your roars and your whispers
And wonder what to answer.

I stretch out my hands here
Like I always do
My spirit wanders out across the leagues
Above the clouds and in between
We wrestle between the rocks and crevices
Drenched with the salinity of your sweat.

I build my castles here
Like I always do
Knowing they are built on sand
Knowing they will not stay
Beyond our courtship dance.
I build them still with turrets and battlements,
Armoured cars and diamond scepters
I build them still with sweat and blood.

I make my dreams here
Like I always do
I choose my cast from these travelers
Matching oblivious to your gaping maws
Matching your drumbeats and their heart beats
Scenes and acts woven from the debris
In your wake.

I will go away
Like I always do
And leave you to your beat
And to your rage and to your fury
I will leave at moonlight
But you will still be here
Like you have always been.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

What more do you want of us?

What more do you ask of us
Deity of the depths
Beyond the cola with six lobes
And the palm nuts of the two headed tree?

We have brought the chameleon and his powder
The cricket and his drums
What more do you ask of us
To salve this your hunger foaming all night

The goats were fat and fresh
The yams long and fat
We have danced around the fire
And yelled into your wind
What more do you ask of us?

This your anger that throws fits all day
Has eaten the cock and still boils
Has eaten the palms and still boils
Has eaten the earth and still boils
What more do you ask of us?

You have taken your priest
As you have his father and his father before him
Now you must accept supper from strangers
Supplications from cast-offs
Sacrifice on broken pots

What more do you ask of us,
But boulders and rubles from afar
Soil borrowed from our enemies
Craft learned from the spirits
To meet your anger.

Our roots are in this soil
We will not make our nests in the air
Our roots are in this soil
We will not breed beneath your waves
What more do you ask of us?

Deity of the depths
Meet us half way, that is our prayer
Still your anger, that is our request
Return our soil, that is our demand
What more do you want of us?

Do not expect sacrifice from our king
Nor supplication from his court
Deity of the depths
The palace is on stilts, as you can see
Their boats stand at the ready

What more do you ask of us?

---------—---------
***the sea is eating our coast
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Now that I am dead ( in memory of all the Boko haram victims )

Now that your bullet
Has torn the last piece of your heart
And splashed my surprised neighborliness
For all to wonder at

Now that the hunger of your hate
Has eaten my heart
Fresh and bloody as you splayed it
For all to cringe at

Now that your manhood
Sticks out of my back
Engorged with the blood of a thousand wounds
For all to sigh at

Now that your crazed eyes
Has seen the tears of the fetus
Dragged forth in the violence of your thrust
For all to cry at

Now that the peace you crave
Envelopes the embers of dead homestead
Buried amidst your rampage
For all to condemn

Now that your bile
Has blackened your tongue
Wrestling with my lips limp with venom
For all to stare at

Now that death rides with you
Your blindfold sparing you
The stark nudity of our mothers horror
For all to jeer at

Now that I am dead
To the shock of your attack
We will spread the taste of death
For all to share.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Elephant has no shepherd

There is a thorn blanket
Woven between the thicket
A red carpet of lost toes
Trod day by day
To the waterhole

There is poison berry
Inviting from the green ceilings
A juicy treat from the anunebe
Drunk day by day
With lunch

There is the fake mating call
Inviting across the plains
The heady pheromone on every leaf
Inflaming with each breath
Carried across the trap

There is the smooth path
Across the quicksand lawn
The inviting relief for aching feet
Sucking the herd soothingly
Beyond relief

There is the distant booms
Of massacre and fire
Massing cinder on cinder
Promising inheritance
Of torched grass lands

There is the cacophony
Of baboons telling the stork
Of quela flock telling the locust
Each voice raised in assurance
Of the path down the long lost lake

There is the growl
Of massed hunger hidden
Murderous eyes shinning in the bushes
Waiting to claim the first scalp
And the last meal

There is the glade beyond the hills
Away from the spears of many cuts
There is the calm beyond the rainbow
But the elephant has no shepherd.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

When it's your turn

When it's your turn
The wind will not stop
The slow and furious traverse
Across land and sea and time

The air will not become foul
Or dark and cloudy
It will not cry for your breath
Or miss your smile

The sun will not forget
To climb out of her easterly bed
Her rays will neither curve nor lose its teeth
Biting through the gap of your absence

The dreams will still
Conjure the illusion of importance
Now that you have become but a thread
Of this dream that forever sleeps

The earth will still turn her spindle
Dancing only in small steps
Around the immortality of her journey
Forever slipping through this silence
That you now share

The butterflies will still seek the flowers
Nectar will still feed the bees
And the bees will still sting to death
The keeper and the stray dog

Memories will still be written
With chalk on smooth rocks
Buffeted in eternity by these
Waves of tears

Don't worry,
When it's your turn
The day will still break.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad