Egg of Fortune

One two three and before
You know it’s ten female children
Begot of her in pursuit of a male child and
Instead of glory her’s is gory.

Rebecca has gone this far
To appease the gung farts;
She could lose her husband
Should another beget him a male.
They say it’s tradition and
I say it’s attrition.

Her eggs are fertile
But her labour is futile. They say
Females don’t matter but the
Matter is females are the world’s fortune.

They swear their tradition to be sacrosanct
But forget that Nneka (mother is supreme).
Their lips are as loose as a goose
But believe they’re as smooth as a snooze.

Zero don’t play the hero and
Abel won’t be able
To be a judge over us.
Forward ever backward never!

The Narrow Road

Fetching firewood in the bush faraway from home late afternoon,
Suddenly, the scorching heat turns the chilling wind,
The sunny skies turn red, then gloomy cloud, the darkness.
It’s the sign of a heavy rain, a downpour, flood inevitable.
Chidi knows it as teardrops fall freely, heavily from his eyes, his crimson face
And haste  we make the narrow road home.

Dear Lord, murmurs Chidi, mom’s home alone
Though rain flood our floor tonight this May
Thy mercy show I implore and spare a room
Our head may rest.

Chidi, only child to only daughter
Only but no father
Leaves in a hut with mother happily and
To many a chagrin.
Rain is dread for mother and child.

Midway home caught and drenched, no shelter no shade no stopping
This narrow road
Homeward strut and legs-paddled we did tirelessly and
Over our heads sat firewood bundles
Both hands clutched to the bundles as
The ferocious wind and downpour fight to steal our labour.
Branches break trees fall, all around us blocking
This narrow road.

Closer to home the flood level drops and
Minutes away the dry land we see no plops.
Praising the Lord, Chidi murmurs and tears-up again as
The rain never came home. It’s all about
That narrow road.

Papa’s Goatskin Bag

One tap two taps my young shoulders felt
” Get up, get up,” papa’s hoarse voice whispers.
Half awaken half adreaming and faintly my name I hear.
I was eight and it was 3:00AM.
“Get my bag, we must go now;” papa commanded!

Walking the darkness of the night through the haunted narrow winding road
Misty leaves of roadside bushes slap left to right rendering us damp.
Passing the village public latrine and graveyard terrain,
Across my left shoulder to my waist hung the bag, and beside him,
Papa expounded stories of a beautiful bride named “wisdom!”
The bag is custodian of life-essentials: herbs, roots, barks, blades, concoctions,
Wine gourd-cups, oil, snuff, kola nuts, bitter kola, alligator pepper, handkerchief.
Tough, impenetrable and odourless goatskin this bag be,
Perfectly twined goat-hides its strap be,
Oversized rusty buckle its lock be,
Papa’s goatskin bag.

Unknown then was electricity, kerosene-lamps lit us, firewood our meals cooked.
Barefeet we trod, scooping along dusty sands and risking all.
Deadly hissing snakes and chirping crickets silence as we
Approach to reproach. The quietness more frightening and bone-chilling than the night.
It’s odd time for human perambulation.
Louder got the chirping and more vicious the hissing, clearly protesting:
‘Tis our time, humans!

‘Twas elders emergency meeting, summoned by the town crier.
Discussion is held hundred percent in proverbs and idioms
Otherwise taboo be it.
No business has a simply-minded in this gathering
Eternal frustration and shame to the elders unversed
To proverbs and idioms.
One third of the men, their kids they bring
To groom and to bequeath the
Secret of the goatskin bag.

Forty-four men in perfect circle on their individual 1ft. wooden stool sat,
Welcomed by ten clay jars of soured palm-wine and bowls of kola placed in their centre.
Mazi  Efulefu, archer and porter, stone-faced and looking blankly inscrutable,
Clearing his throat, addressed the kindred:
“He who brings kola brings life; what the elder sees while seating on the ground,
A child cannot see even when standing on top of a mountain.”
Intent listening, easily bemused, hard understanding and forever I retain
Their rambled discussions that lasted but half hour, and
In reckless abandon did all speeches idiomatically centre on
Subjection, supposition and subjugation, born out of
Oppression, depression and suppression.
But why? the kids must evolve into
Papa’s goatskin bag!

 

CMHR – Our Mirror In The Sun

Like the iconic beaver that builds from rough patches,
Deliberate and uniquely amazing its architecture is,
Gifting us with engineering wonder
That carefully glides from the ground up;
Guided by solid pillars and ramped high.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR)
Tells tales of our dark moments past,
Humanity’s shame that hunts us still.
Though scars have strange power to remind that the past is real;
But forgiveness recharges and offers hope.

Why do I feel the feeling for the urgency of healing?
Oh, yes! Healing, the fruit of purity of the soul is needed.
Balms of alabaster basin, soothing of the soul,
Light to our paths, sole to the feet, and oil to the wheels.
Vine wine dine and divine
Or grapevine or graveyard?

In the dark ages when nations wrought red-hot rod against
Her inhabitants, when the travail of ages wrings earth’s system to and fro,
Canada with crooked and mute lips stood and did less
Worsting to me the hand of the perpetuators,
Credence by so given to terror and chill and triumph of evil.
Conscious or unconscious, there comes a moment for decision.

The story of the CMHR cleverly told adulteration-free
Exposes the dastardly acts of the wicked, man’s inhumanity to man,
Explores the pains of the victims, the resilience of will and spirit against all odds.
Rough and tough is the 2nd floor of the exhibit,
Deem and dark are its residents.
Galleries exhibit shackles and broken evidences of broken people.
The works of men and the words of men are worlds apart, still
There exist an opportunity to contemplate
For honest efforts to right our wrongs, accepting the truth that
All human were created equal!

Elevators embrace all to the galleries,
But real access experience is by the slope ramps
Clad with translucent alabaster banisters.
These unique banisters seem yet brighter as you progress.
Faith have I that ev’ryone is capable of good deeds
But ’til the wicked acknowledge his wrongs,
Sincerely apologize and refrain from them,
Can true healing take place. Hope is not hopeless.
The CMHR edifice is our mirror in the sun.
See yourself in it.
That’s just but the beginning!

-Charles Ibezimako © 2016

Red Hot Rob

Focused, deliberate & versatile,
Perhaps destined,
True to his name and his origin:
Falcon; Red Pheasant First Nation.
The Falcon, as prey, flies without patching
And as predator, hunts without missing.
Robert-Falcon Ouellette dared dream.

A dream of dedicated service
To all mankind, the downtrodden,
To change the course of events for good.
Treads in grandeur the road of his ancestors
Who fought for noble causes.
His outcome,  astounding results.

The Northern Light
The beacon of Hope
The king slayer
The giant killer.

Hav’n done what none other
Has ever done in his community
In time and space,
He will, ever Rising,
As a movement in a twinkle
Of an eye
Be our Red Hot Rising Rob,
Still Rising to greater heights.

-Chuck Ibezimako (c) Oct. 22/15

Felling of the Unripe Fruits in Paris

Parisians and all peoples afflicted by these
Senseless and cowardly acts by terrorists
November thirteen two thousand and fifteen,
Do not vex yourselves exceedingly,
Mourn with strength and hope knowing that
Your loved ones’ lives, too quickly and so violently rushed
To the ground, unripe still,
Are not in vain.

Like leaves that fall to the ground
They circle to fertile the ground to
Produce more trees and leaves.
They cause us to make our world better.

Like fruits plucked and scattered in the fields
Before they’re ripe,
They’re green, hard and bitter to eat and swallow.
These lives were not ready to plummet.
Tempesting, the sight and sound is ugly,
Even the vultures despise and won’t partake
The hyenas too.
Woe betide thee, this doers,
Thou have no right to take a life
Thou who knoweth not how life began.
Wherefore inquireth I of thy lineage?
I hate thee not, but thy works I hate.
Let’s embrace love
For hate is too much a burden.

As they’re laid to rest
I know the stones will rest lightly on their bones
Lest it adds to their heavy burden
Of being hewn down too soon.
Your lives, friends, were never in vain.
Adieu!

Chuck Ibezimako © November 14, 2015

Ant

Oh rapid ant,
You are as
Calm and placid
As you are full
Of formic acid.

Why have you
No limit to the latitude
Where you can exist
With attitude?
Though vibrant and industrious,
Thou art an irritant.

-written July 2014

Ode to fall

Fall. Did your name emanate
From everything falling?
That ought be sad as part of you turn & die, as
All the leaves fall from the tree, leaving the branches
Bare against the bitter windy cold.
Rather it seems the leaves & everything else blush
And beam with strange but brilliant & colourful beauty.
As if to say to the ground: Falling, yessss,
Am falling in love with you.

This poem was recently featured in Manitoba Hot, Travel Manitoba’s blog.

Anarchy

Falcon, falcon, oh falcon!
Bird of prey and messenger,
Most obedient to human voice.
A peace instrument, yet fierce in otherwise,
Now no more do thee heed the falconer
But flirt the flute of the gory.

Oil in the canvass,
And sand in the pipelines.
When shall peace
Betroth our earth;
Perhaps, no more shall
Ears eavesdrop the tidings
Of the Garden of Eden.

Me think the Bushman
Has since Blaired up
And now may be Harpered
As things fall apart.

                              -written April 2006