SOYINKA’S INSTINCT
(A TRIBUTE TO WOLE SOYINKA AT 79)

I.
The Lion sniffs
The pigs scamper for safety
Hiding inside the dirty lake
Like sloths in a sizzling feast
Where are the sharks
Try leave your confines
And cross the Rubicon

II.
Then the lion’s instinct
Will wake up to the stink
In the rottenness of a whitish grave
Of the lame
Of the subdued
In this ever groaning gate of hell
That its unquenchable fire licks

III
The living in this exhausted space
Dogs eating dogs
Along this framed and famished fraternity
Lugard like at loggerhead
Are snaping and sorrowing
In the stench and stammer of
A seized corroding cough

IV
Peeping into the frightened future
Where the entrails of yesterday
Will meet the dashed hopes of today
In a sterile faith
Whining about in a voiceless temper
Groging along a slippery path blindly
All through midnight

V
Now rodents are in far corners
With their bounteous booty
Like a child packing elders ration
In a fresty feast of greed
Now are the palm nuts
Along the paved paths of Spain
And inside the crooked kitchens of Canada

VI
Wild woes wither
While the world watches
Us in derisive laughter
Standing like stilt dancers
Speaking in gutturals
And wondering whether there
Are no elders

VII
Marauders in gowns of steel
Our intestine on the floor of
Their slaughter house
In their court of corpses
A faded ferment of fury
Among the victims
Is rising like Indian pyre

VIII
Numb, we are
Grizzled in a prison of
Vacant mind
The bastards are the kings
Slaves are the royals
In this hearth of a burning desire
For freedom

IX
One massive rack of old skeletons
All pouring libation
Our worship to deaf gods
Yet, a storm in burukutu tumblers
A guffaw and a groan
Everyone clamouring to escape
To the desert of dust

X
Infants in barbed back
Sucking their torn thumbs
Waiting for a visionless tomorrow
Waiting for a tireless moon
That is too shy to come
And a sun
That comes bleaching

XI
Yet, we trust the lion’s resolve
To demand from our world, justice
And like Ross park, your feet
Is planted on the soil of defiance
Your ogun’s angered face before tyrants
Threatening; your ageless gray cap
A sign of your endless battle and
Your eternal triumph
The tyrants, this time, are tormented.

***By Azua Alonu
Poet, Playwright and
Vice Chairman, Delta Literary Forum.