1
To have loved Mami Wata in her underwater palace of coral :
to have had trysts with the moon in her days of full glory,
to have tasted one dish and never wished for another, and to have lived here where it was a different country!
2
My memories chase out the army of poachers.
In their green outfit of old seasons they restore the tattered map of the country. Now the starving amongst us trip over carcasses the won't even touch.
3
I look for the reed in the tide, the resilient spirit blending but never breaking; the slim one that relishes it's God-given supply limbs-
now another casualty drowned in oil slush.
4
Before the fisherman could finish building a boat to evacuate,
the river dried up and horses galloped through to capture him-
in exile he remembered the moats of Benin did not stop swarms of locusts
from devastating the city and having their fill or blood and bronze.
5
The map of my homeland has changed.
The cartographers blot out forests and rivers.
Oil wells and flares dot the new landscap-
now nobody recognizes the beauty queen's face.
6
The primeval inhabitants of the land
suffer martyrdom ay the hands of poachers who bast them out of their naive existence .
The Niger loses draughts ;memories of majest.
7
For good luck I carry about memories of floodwater, primarily the seven-day storm that snak sun and moon in gurgling streams and creeks, the entire land a seascape when my bait-free new hooks caught catfish and mudfish.
8
The apiapia cries hysterically ,flying over its former haunt :
"It's another planting season and what a cheerless sight , hardly any farmers! " They fled to be servants in the city.
Who blames bird or migrant, the soil one barren crust?
9
Evergreens bald, every head bowed in disgrace.
No season grows back flared or suffocated leaves and the cycle of self-succeeding generations dies.
Green is now a scarce commodity in the rain forest.
10
The eye of the earth beholds a vandalized fortune.
The ears of the earth numb from the deep silence .
Its veins clogged by an abundance of oily grease,
Its heart beats an irregular drum that fades away.
11
When wood copulates with iron,
the axe is born and groomed
to chop down more trees.
Suicide goes by many names.
12
The iroko knows not how it can survive the iron era to welcome eagles to its crown .I wish I knew how.
Globalization is not category-5 hurricane; its direction escapes forecast-it leaves litters in an insane trail.
13
We have plenty of bait but no fish in the water-
decades of genocide, millions of victims.
Once earthwarm begin to consume themselves, the world would've run its cycle; a predator's paradise.
14
The rich among us used to boast of the many barrels of palm oil they produced in the season of industry .
Then came spills and flares that burnt out palm trees.
Today the government a d Shell toast their oil fortune .
15
The birds and beetles lost their refuge, as people of the creeks lost their sun, moon, and stars to fumes.
Why are survivors of the globalisation assault only the insignia of commander-in-chief, vultures and cobras?
16
When the migrant birds return, how will they know their homes from others in the wilted dominion?
If they stray from the native soil, it's because flaring winds blew them to where nobody lives.
17
In town there are new roads and signposts as well as waves of rats and migrants -
democracy demolished monument of dictators for good, but still we bleed.....