WE ARE WHERE WE ALL BELONG

I do not know what happened

before I became a singer, yet Agbozo says

we are where we all belong on this earth

 

they say the dog does not birth a child in public,

to whom should I give my song in this hot noonday

when some say I should cover my face with my hands

that good things of this world some have it others don’t

that is why Agbayiza tells the wayfarers

we are at where we all belong on this earth

 

yesterday, I carried my sorrows on my shoulders

like a net but I met an evil god on the sea at Azizanu

so I came home with my sorrows on my shoulders

and told the people in the town that the sea was bad

Agbayiza, listen to me, in the middle of my speech

all mad dogs of Agbogbloshie chased me to Ghostland

 

The royal palm says he does not talk in vain

it is the whirlwind that provoked him

what made bats to hide in eaves and come out at night

is known only to the Creator God and not us

 

Kofiloto, lets cry together, I’m a pilgrim of sorrow

tossed in this wide world with nobody to hear me

they say what happened to you yesterday

and your wives run away to marry strangers

has become the flood waters ravaging my farmstead

and now people want the son of the eagle

to turn a beggar in the market square

 

Why is Afitor and her people bellowing, yearling fuming

like a hippo, like a voice of thunder angry like a smallpox god

terrorizing people in every stead, in every market square

maybe I’m like a swallow imprisoned in the rafters of the rich

and they want to kill it and throw it onto the dunghill

but Agbozo, when the sea dries can’t you walk home

or when the market is closed don’t the sellers go home

it's always the useless dancer who blames the drummers

 

Akpalu once said, he lives his life in an anthill

That termites are his next door neighbors

Should anyone wish to love him that person should know

He is not alone, he lives with termites in his anthill

You said this tree is barren; it has no shade for your tired self

Why then are you wailing that it denied you comfort in the sun

Or maybe the wailing is for your regrets

 

It was Kamasa who said he wished the diviner could tell him

why one mother gave birth to four children

one is Aɖuefunawo, another is Gbɔgblɔbu,

one is Deafeamekpɔ and the other is Enuemekpe

Nɔvinyewo, we are where we all belong on this earth

when they birth me the priest did not know I’ll survive

so you too is surprised I didn’t turn a beggar at the market square

 

FOR XENODZI

Fonyemetɔwo, there is a Boat on the River

And Kutsiami the only Boatman at the haven

of sprawling Waters is about to row me home

If Dzoɖuamtɔwo want to smoke me out early

It is Adehenu mehea aɖiɖigbale o who said

it’s the secret of the world

that nothing dies

 

They say Awudi de aʋa metsina aʋa o

Because on this earth akpa klika mewua elo o

So tell them that we do not die, but retire a little

from sight and afterwards return again

it is Hofe who said nothing dies

 

He said, nothing dies; men, women,

the old and young they feign themselves dead

to accept our dirges and mournful notes,

while they stand before the windowsill

looking sound and well, in some strange disguise

watching our tears fall in torrents of rain

 

so, when Death comes

like the hungry hyena into the veldt

to take the bright Coins from our Purse

tell my children, tell all kith and kin

I step through the door full of curiosity

wondering what it’s going to be like

in that cottage of Darkness

 

And perhaps if death is kind,

and there can be a returning

I will come back one fragrant night

and walk those village lanes again

to join in at the dinner table

 

I’ll then look into the eyes

of each new offspring

I will give a long handshake

to all kith and kin

 

But when I come down

there should still be the resounding drumbeat

of Akpalu, Kinka, Akpoka, Afa,

in fact, Gbadza and not Azonto

with henɔgawo singing the old songs

 

We will meet under the baobab tree

where once we met the ancestors and they accepted

our offerings and gave us the long gentle breeze

that brought rain to the crops and peace to the land

 

the night will be starlit

and you will be happy you were there

I WISH WE NEVER MET

I never knew those supple eyes

had a maelstrom of unkind desires

hidden in their peeps and tweets

 

I never knew your embraces

have such cruelest spites

the most unkind in the divinely design

 

The lips are no source of life either,

They birthed venoms spit death threats

conceived in the darkest shadow

 

In our search for pleasure

I never knew it will be a consort of pain

that erupts agonies even in my slumber

 

they say living fire can beget cold impotent ashes

you’ve become yesterday's hot fire

that begot today's cold ashes

 

and I wish we never met

SURPRISES

The endless
doubt escapes
and darkness turns
to daylight

The deepest fear
of tomorrow
now walks in naked light

And they hide
their faces
in violet sheds of tears

Now their daughters
like Cinderellas pirouettes
and twirls their tulle “Kaba” skirts
asking for the needles they cursed
in the dark

They want the aroma
of clean sheets, to dine with fork
and knife just milliseconds
before they sleep

Surprises,
they forgot their constant doubts of yesterday
they forgot their deepest fears
of tomorrow when the journey began
they forgot they left the boat in the storm

(Padmore Agbemabiese, Cleveland, 12/21/2013)

What Else is there than Death?

There were sounds of hymns to God all night

While a thousand hearts wailed beneath the dungeons

They were hushed, scrubbed, pillaged and scoured

and rushed to fields to gather tears and trembling distress

into their bosoms till their blood tissues wore death

like a bracelet till worms claim their souls at dawn

 

after their nightmares on many rivers

they were stretched on a bloody bier

down narrow lanes they whispered in silence

when they heard Emmett once sang his dirge

about his lost black southern manhood at 15

I think I was told he entered an uncle’s store

And kissed Death’s prophetic ear in a whistle

 

Within the windowless arms of the high walls

we’ve fanned the strongest flames of love

we’ve counted rosaries of remembrance

chanted Pater Nostra all nights to a dear father

only to carry thin lines of dying dreams in our arms

 

are dead folks not the 'liveliest' of us all"

 

 

DADDY, COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

(for my children)

Daddy, please come home for Christmas

soon, Church bells would be ringing;
our choir would be singing, the "Silent Night"
and the glad news of Christmas
will fill the air of every home

right now, I have no friend
to wish me greetings of Merry Christmas

nor tell me how wonderful the New Year would be
so Daddy, why don’t you come home for Christmas
for it is going to be a Holy Night with angels watching

the house next door, our relations across the road
have all put up their Christmas trees

they have even lit their candlelight in the porch
and by New Year's night friends and relations
will send each other salutations
they will drum and sing and dance

every child will dance and sing too
they will see a star shine above
and joy will fill their hearts, when Daddy walks in
to put a smile on their cheeks

my child will see no star but an empty space

void of an arm that could warm the soul
so Daddy, tell her gently how long is her wait
for you to come home for Christmas?
 
if you could come home for Christmas
our home would be a manger in my heart
where there’d be no more sorrow
and there would be no more grief nor pain
I'll just be happy, and happy in my soul
for Daddy is home with me for Christmas

Daddy, for my sake
please come home for Christmas
I want to hear the bells ring too
I want to be in the choir
when they sing, the "Silent Night"
and the glad news of Christmas
would fill the veins of my heart just because
Daddy is home with me for Christmas

(Written in Columbus, Ohio 1998)

The Stable

the winds were scornful,
passing by without a note
and gathering Angels
wondered why

Mary, a burdened mother
for God’s sake did not mind
that only animals in this world
were kind to her child.

Grandma used to say, “Who in this world
could guess that God would abandon
such a lovely soul in the middle

of such a horrible loneliness?”

and I too wondered, why

Drawing me

the road that lies ahead
is under construction

and much is yet to be done
yet, it is night

the picture from the other side
is hazy and foggy and funny
this isn’t the picture I wish to see
to let me be and become at ease

I've been to Texas
I've been to Montreal, to Birmingham
everywhere in search of me
it is mist and storm crushing my soul

many roads run up and down where I go
yet I needed only one  
where do I go with them
when I’m lost with uncertainty

climbing and scaling mountainsides
away from home chasing butterflies
that seems beautiful everywhere

I’m painting lines in my mind

as I want them to be
that makes sense in my head
and I don’t care what you may say

if the picture has no appeal
I’ll draw it again
I’ll keep drawing it till I see me
the real me in Reality

The Will

IMPRIMIS—I wish to die at the place I call Home

but it is too late now
 
my departing shadow I entrust to Heaven
my memory I give to the silent Dust
my Body I give to public censure
to be disposed off as my friends think fit
 
the miseries I brought onto my aged home
are gifts of an unthinking Youth
and at my funeral will be melancholy’s song
the only requiem fit like cries over garlic

I never thought of a chill snow-ribbed world
with a drift of rare flowers with delicate
shell-like diamonds enclosing frozen lily-leaves
their camellia textures were mere teasers
they are colder than the thorn of roses

now I know the windflower
that keeps alive the breath of ants
from the north-wind world

today I depart this world
with intimate thoughts of the place I call home
and treasure its beauty on my mind
from now I’ll reach out to share
the rare pure texture of its beautiful spaces
and long lines of marvels to grace

I will preach of its intimate hands
and dear drawn forever-green garden wards
all these sheer raptures I will take
to mold a clear and frigid statue
for small Poets to bequeath like my Pen

Prophecy

one day someday
I will claim my wings
I will seize the skies
I will take the land

one day someday
I will return your heart home
I will return your soul to the land
the land of your father's birth

you will return to the land
reading poems of love
from ribbons of human touch
drinking from pools of human laughter

you'll see dreams of amazing grace

one day some day
I will return
return in Waterfalls of Fire
I will return to trembling eyes

step on mounds of burning chaos
pick maggots hanging on mouths
crush the lies in living museums
and the Rainbow won't set

till the poor inherit the kingdom
till the hungry are filled
till they that weep laugh
in the land of their Father's birth

 

 

An Apology for Sena

(For Z and B who witnessed the slaughter)

Forgive me if I smile often, Sena,

for you are not sure if I have a heart
overflowing with love enough to ever love dearly.

You are too young to remember
how I was named in sentences of unaccented tongues,
And you do not know I was buried in an open grave
And like a poor man from Salaga I never had my say
and I took my unsung dreams with me to my somewhere

You were young then and I was too frail

to sing loudly in the court of conscience
and they all found me guilty of love
of not caring enough to love their daughter
and I died and I dreamed and I tried and I
I died of sleep. 

This was many years ago

and Zeno was away and Britt was put on pause

Sena, forgive me if I laugh myself away

I laugh and smile because I’ve unfashion the open grave

placed my swollen feet in a complex lace

and I’ve ended the foreclosures on my life

and refused to demand recompense for my heartaches

And I never cursed the Land which gave you birth

for the many heartbreaks I survived

Sena, if you see me laugh shyly

it’s because I do not have a tongue of worms
like some who expose the venom they learned from somewhere

And if you care to know

I’ll never burp you up
I will always hold your love close to my heart

 

Will Return

Whenever seconds tick astray
this heart glides into its Birth-waters.
In every slaughtering of the day
it sails in the morning rain to the place it calls home.

Many birthdays ago
we knew nothing about a landing that
will hold us suspended above our bones

Many seasons ago
When our souls arrived at the port of longing
after crossing oceans with hope in our loins 
we knew nothing about the muddy waters
or the toxic wounds inflicted by a hurricane of smiles

Today, there’re too many mournful things
to be named in a single sermon on the mount
But how to pass our songs to ancestral rivers
before time collapses in the woods
is with great difficulty

Each day we’ve seen our songs turn into germs
while our tears drowned our panting souls

How little others know about the migration of our souls
crossing oceans to ports of longings
and the stampede that baptizes our breaths
and in the midair we become clowns
chasing the Dream lost in each other’s shadows

We are still here with limbs starched to our bones
only waves of scars on our fatigued selves can say all

With no roadmap to escape from the thunder and plunder
we awake each dawn with whisper-screams and blood-tears
tucked beneath our cracking skulls

but one day, before I disappear without my coat
I’ll pick up this breath to remember me

In my dreams I rub my limbs and tell it to sparkle
with laughter on village lanes

If you meet me—A Goodnight Song to Apartheid

(for Nelson Mandela)

If you meet me sitting
Quietly, counting fingers by the moon
Like the chicken pecking bones
In the pain of winter,
Don’t think I need your tears.
 
If you meet me sitting
Quietly bathing in streams of thought
Like sad blues from the gallows
Like screams searching heaven
Don’t think I worship your name.

All these pains of drought

All these smiles of dying leaves
All these screams of a corrugated breath—
Wet blankets of colored birds
Stretching into dawns.

They are absorbing the day’s heat

They are gathering screams from the village
Laughing softly at your imperial dreams
With their hungry swords they will empty
The grief cared long by all prison-drowned souls.
 
And if you meet me again sitting quietly,
Whispering words on the back
Of the Wind don’t think
I’m roasting dreams
I’m claiming the sky like a Bird.