Experiment with Naija Langwej: Puwem

experiment' with the Naija Langwej.

A Don Dai!

As a de slip yestade nait
Mai hat jost de nak gbam-gbam
Na so so ''turn'' a de ''turn'' fo bed.
Bodi de pen mi and a no kari fayawud
Mai ai de pepe mi and a no kot onions
Wetin mai iye hia
Mai maut no fit tok
Di kasala we pesin don enta plenti wel-wel.

Mama Naija don lost im pikin egen!
Dem se dis wan no bi 'bomb blast'
Dem se dis wan no bi 'unknown gunmen'
Dem se dis wan no bi 'kidnapping'
Bot wetin man pikin sabi?
Enitin we mek pesin krai no gud lai lai.
Fia de kash mi no bi smol
Bodi de du mi laik se na ''malaria''
Si as Mama Naija sidon
De luk ol im pikin vanish
Opon ol di moni we shi get
Wetin kom bi mai hop?
''Poor'' man pikin laik mi?
A don dai!

When it Alteration Finds: On Love, Family and Friendship II

...Why would anyone take their own life? We ask, disgusted. It's cowardice! We judge. Nobody should ever contemplate taking their life, we condemn, in the comfort of our couches at home. But have you ever thought, wondered just for a little while, how far a kind word could go? Have we ever thought really how many times we have pushed people to death because we refused to listen to them?

Listening makes all the difference. The world is tough enough, we need each other to pull through, to survive, to live. When a child places his arm in his mother's to cross the roads, it is because he trusts her protection. The roads seem less dangerous at that moment. But alone, there are thoughts that he might get knocked down by a vehicle. It takes so much courage for him to attempt crossing, he may give up and turn back. Life is a road and we need each other's arms to cross it. As friends, as families, even as mere individuals, we must learn to avail ourselves. Be approachable. We must learn to listen to people. Regardless of the hurt we bear them, forgetting the grievances, everyone deserves a fair hearing. Condemnation only destroys.

Sometimes all the world needs to get it rolling is a little bit of love. 

Think of the biggest tragedies of life, think of religious violence, think of homes falling apart. Perhaps if we had spent one more second listening to each other, embracing our differences, perhaps if we had opened that door, to that woman, to that child, to that man, pleading to be heard, perhaps if, on our own, we had even reached out...perhaps if we did all these, life would be more peaceful. But we don't. Because it is always easier to point fingers...

*to be continued

Read When it Alteration Finds I here: 

http://chijeniewrites.blogspot.com/2015/05/when-it-alteration-finds.html

The Rock Cries

                                                                                         28th May, 2015.

Dear Maya,

Today, it is one year since your absence. The violence you so much decried still ravages us. Brothers still fight brothers, friends stab each other's back, earth is raped and bleeds. We look at the rivers, trees and rocks and do not see the oneness in them. In us.

The blinds of false dedication to our faiths are yet to fall off. So many mouths hang open in hunger, while others yell hatred and their hands strike out lives. Innocent lives that cannot fight back.

The earth weeps. Your precious little ones go to sleep and wake up stiff, covered in dust. Do you remember the Chibok girls? You prayed endlessly for their safety just before you left. Oh dear Maya. They are yet to return. We wailed and wailed, soiled our beautiful shirts with tears. Ruined our expensive makeups. Believing they would return. But not our tears nor the hash tags could do the miracle. Distant friends gave up sleep and watched sorrowfully, helplessly, as the flames from their lit candles wobbled and wobbled and died. So we forgot about them. We lived on like they never existed. We found new topics. New hash tags and took delight in them. We sought for humour in everything and left no space in our hearts to think, to remember, the captive. We do not even pray anymore for we have lost faith in its efficacy.

Dear Maya, daily, the world loses gems like you and we dress in black as you ascend gloriously to your maker. We cry, because we are afraid. We are afraid because while you toiled to make things better, we slept away. But your departure shook us to reality and now confusion reigns. We do not possess such energy as you did. We escape when we ought to stand and speak and fight. Our walls crumble and fall on us and we skelter around, seeking for shelter.

The world misses you. Bravery. Love. Grace. All that you were. It deepens, this void. This realisation that there is no Maya Angelou speaking up for the marginalised. No Maya Angelou striving to create a balance in this stricken world. So we simply trudge on. With the pain of your absence in our hearts. Seeking solace in your words and literature and as the night gets longer and tougher, all we yearn is your voice, your voice saying to us...

Good morning.

Forlorn Lover III

You left. But you forgot your poetry. What do I do with it? Set it ablaze? But how do you burn something already burning in you?

Today, I wore the last drop of our perfume and the smell of you followed me everywhere. I returned home, sodden in my own tears. Of liberation. Of nostalgia. After today, I won't have to remember you. I will wash clean this dress, rid it of every scent. I will bury deep the empty peach container of our perfume. Then you will be forgotten.

But here I am, again, your poetry in my heart with my soul on fire...

When it alteration finds...

Growing up, I used to think that family meant blood. You know blood, right? There's no separating it from itself. I used to think that a father doesn't only cheer his children, pride them in everyone's face and shower them with praises. I used to think that he doesn't only provide for them, but that he also cautions. Cautions his children when they go wrong. Spank, spank, if necessary. I didn't think that a father, on finding out that his beloved child robs people, rapes, gambles and even murders, denies him a benefit of doubt. I didn't think that he would slam the door shut to the very face whose forehead he once kissed. I didn't think he could become forever deaf to the incessant sounds of palms banging the door, begging to be held and heard. Where went all the love? Was it a farce?

Now, I seek to understand, what does "ties" really mean? This thing called family and friendship. What does it mean? Embracing me because you think I'm good and dumping me almost as soon? Why are people ever friends, family, if they can't say to each other, "Hey, I heard what you did. You messed up big time" How does one form and break these ties all by themselves? What fate then do we condemn the "bad" to? What if they wallow so because no one ever cared? Because every other person dumped them and moved on? Again, what if they aren't really so bad? What if all they needed was to be heard...but no one ever asked...No one.

And we wonder why people take their own lives...

Forlorn Lover II

Love's a state of mind. It is sitting cold beside the one who makes your heart flutter and wishing you can run a stake through him. It is lying in bed with the one who makes you whole and feeling incomplete. It is giving a handshake and not a kiss. It is walking alone. With your companion, far behind.

unruffled

i stroke my teddy and ask

why is your face so pale
why do you not smile
you who do not  wear tragedy's pants
the sun scalds you not
you are not made wet by the
cloud's falling tears

here, you sit
all day,
unruffled
while breaths slip out of bodies
hearts hardened
by the incessant blows they receive

but you sit all day
unruffled
while dreams become ash

yet red is the colour of dreams
that flow out of men
with their eyes shut
and limbs lingering
like the poor cow's
at the butcher's

grey is the colour of ashes
that rise to the sky
from charred bodies and
lips that once laughed

ashes become cloud
cloud is heavy,
tainted
and weeps
like the charred bodies
alive in the classroom
and sulking, "i want my mummy"

but you sit all day
unruffled
while i'm deafened by this
strange noise
though distant,
it pierces me
how laughter becomes tears
screams liquidized
how blood flows freely free
than water

how they do not see the us in them just before they strike...