Poet-Today ~ Eneminyene Eromosele ~ The Arts-Muse Fair

''ITELE''

To the dusk whose sun,

refuse to set

while mystery clouds

embrace it's vest.

When faint lines

with dazzling stars

come bold to stand

amidst the amphora's arm

while shelves without

books, shed ignorance

with their dusty eyes

they will see your rays

Even dark clouds that trail

your kerb to sink

her casted shadows on

your moonwalk steps,

will see your rays.

I  Y A  M  I     A  J  E

This fallen breast

Raised thousand clans

The pains which danced around

My little waist brought your fathers to life

Your Ancestry is written

With wrinkles on my forehead

And your history is sketched

On my simian line

I was, before darkness

I was, before light

I waited for the birth of moonlight

And I witnessed my shadow's death

But forget this not

That you share my strength

For your umbilical cord

Ties us abound one path

And your generations shall

Pay tributes to Osun

For without my womb

The sands will be strangers to your feet

DANCE TO OUR S T O R Y

Let's dance to the gods

Play silence in our drums.

Bend the sound of flutes

To suit the stories in our hearts.

Let's dance to the gods,

Let our footsteps remind our toes

Of every sun heat that kissed it

In Western savannas.

Tell the children how strangers came to our land,

The ancestry they took and the book they left.

This book we loved, that caged our minds

History corrupted by White lies.

Our gods and us taken to captivity

Now we talk of mental slavery.

They stole our Festac face-

Took our gods to Europe

And gave them a new religion.

Dance to our stolen gods,

But don’t forget to tell the children our stories

That we dined with gods

That we were once gods

But some, who came with a compass, a crescent moon and a cross,

Changed the course of our journey.

**** 

Eneminyene Eromosele is an Afrocentric poet, performer and initiator of Skybird Poets, Uyo. He is a perpetual attendee at Festival Poetry Calabar.