You who are my kinfolks
Who dwell on the land of my forefathers
Where the sun is draped in metaphysical hazes
And where yams speak of forgotten traditions.
Think not of what you see on television
But of the words I scribe to you:
You have wasted good palm wine and valuable time
celebrating and toasting to my good fortune.
I have become successful at existing as a prisoner
Of social lies and never ending wishful dreams.
I have eaten beans from a can dated a year ago.
I walk through streets scattered with dry bones
Where the young's cries of hunger are turned to icicles
Before their tears touches their evaporated cheeks.
As you continue to toast to my good fortune:
Never spending any of your days wondering
How can a devil's playground be any different from any other.
Realizing not, what my eyes have already feasted upon
As I push on, striving to find the street paved in gold.
Your ideas of American living are no more
Real than the images of a white Jesus Christ.
We have been tricked into believing in a land
No different than our own.
Where feuds turn endowments into burdens and blues.
Where soul snatchers masquerade through dark back alleys
Shedding the blood of future warriors in the name of liberty
And stomping fear into our bleeding hearts.
So drink and celebrate no longer for my fortune
Of erected myths and fables around my swollen head.
I will soon flee. I shall return home to stand before my shrine
And meditate on ways to cleanse the path of the newcomers.
A Poem for my Homeland - Olutunde Olufemi
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2 comments:
Poetry at OGOV seems to preach about Africanness and nothing else. i think it's hard time poets observe nature and bring out what many eyes have looked but had failed to see!Poetry must flow from within through what the eyes have seen.A poet must be a worshipper of nature.Don't meant to be to rude or to change the house style that may exist.I like poems like the marketplace by Emma Akuffo,A Sack of words by Emma Sigauku etc.
Olutunde, I treasure the philosophical nuggets in your poetry. Identity is essential in systems where everything goes. Truly our sense of who we are guides us on our respective paths in life.
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