A Revolution Song

this song of mine

is a revolution song

that must be chanted

in the streets of seven tongues.

And like a rainbow,

the colour of their lyrics

Shall be painted upon

the tombstone of men

who refuse to die in their sleep.

A story would be read

In the evening news.

Abdul is a Nigerian

who attempted suicide

but the fan in their house

could not hold his dream,

so it let him to fall down unto

the table of scattered dreams.

I heard that men

Pass this street every day,

Chanting this song of mine,

That we’re suffering and smiling

But this smile is a fading song

Of ageless sorrow

Which the world refuses to hear.

————-

Songs of a Refugee

Who said poets do not grieve When they knit pain into words? – Fatima Salihu

Those who hold the night in their heart

know the heaviness of a war song.

The songs of those who carry the bags

of their dreams, fleeing ancestral lands.

The songs of the bones and flesh of

men who follow the path of a falling mountain

and the songs of the decaying blood

of drowning hearts.

Borno

The night has weaved its thread

into your mournful heart.

You now wear a darkness

the colour of night.

Place your burden upon the

history of a desert land

whose daughter sings a black song.

Your blood, they said is a flowing river

swallowed within a body,

it circulates within the belly

of a sorrowful drum

seeking a large heart, seeking freedom

in the theater of a refugee’s songs

————-

Like a Dirge

the metaphor in this poem is that something is always lost – Adedayo Agarau

Stich your song

upon the blanket of history,

and you would hear the echoes

of rampaging feet.

Men wearing turbans,

Preaching their religion

into the bones of a night

the night that swallows the rhythm of a morning song.

You have learned to write

a dirge upon the pages of your soul

that when the turbaned men knocked upon your door

with the song of a black spirit,

you could not hear the sound.

They broke in to find you

Naked in your thoughts.

And like the dirge upon your soul

Their sermon was

Death, and brief and short like

Life

————-

Poems © Wazani Adamu Ijarafu

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay (modified)