Michael
Achile Umameh
UNMOVED
MOVER - Michael Achile Umameh
He thirsts for my prayer
not for my blood
He is appeased by my love
not by my death
for deep wounds, a deeper love
His answer, finds my prayer.
The wine of his power
pour in full strength
into the cup of his Word;
Prophetic spirit in Aggadah
Priestly voice in Halakhah
Kingly fire in Rhema
Spoke forth existence
Trees behind trees
hedge here, Oaks there
seas before sands
Sun here, stars there
Beasts after the least
Let us appreciate the firefly
for cold light, on old night
Ancestors of nature; mountains
eldest daughter of spring; fountain
Sing, sing, one of Eden’s songs
the sea of doubt fled,
as the forest of fantasies heard
anthem’s fiery vision of
The foster children of Valhalla
Laud the forge,
The redeemer of man,
I am the crown of beauty
and what delight nature must feel
I am here, you are there
Indestructible ground of all that is.
My maker, my unmoved mover.
Michael Achile Umameh
A SIGH AND HALF
expelled
offspring of unspent dream
we are the
voices of wandering winds
heaves of
pressurised silenced scream
cocktail of a
moan, a sob, a tamed cry
Night after
night the wind go sighing
weaving the
unfinished day into unrest
in the depth of
dark, a voice is calling
a sigh and half
to gather into a breast
for the sighs
too deep for air is burping
a muffled
restlessness of a jilted lover
cursing, and
staining the hour with sighing
and wounds
unrequited love with its thunders
a sigh and half
is all in the offering
pre-packaged
like a canned music
communal anthem
of hope, expecting
sighs of relief
and sigh of beliefs, tic
and when I run
out of tears for weeping
a sigh and half
will do,
and when the
events are too much for wailing
a sigh and half
will do,
tonight, I go
again sighing with the wind
as muted anger
aligns with the stars of hope
in the cloud of
unknowing, may I find
the itchy throat
of silence in uproar
on a chord in
every heart that sings
with a sigh and
half of its stings
-Michael Achile Umameh
(for Akeem Adetayo Oyalowo)
Dammy Krane
A mute bird in the cage
With a saccharine-d tambourine
Hippy, lippy and nippy
What message art thou sending?
Dammy Krane
Stewing in a skewed mane
with a borrowed robe
of fools, frauds and firebrands
to whom is your inner life pretending?
Dammy Krane
Tell the Ostrich from the crane
Concert fired fury
Dies the death of dye
Fanned fame- fading.
Hear and heed the rhythm
of wisdom’s theme
living a life your pockets cannot afford
is a misleading life of limelight.
Stop trending! Stop sending!
Loud emptiness.
Michael Achile Umameh
THEN, CAME JOHNSON - - Michael Umameh
Then
Came Johnson the
left-handed
He was a happy-clappy,
chatty chap
Muse of poets and for
songwriters oddities
Born in a climate of
clumsy possibilities
Reared in the waters of
culture vulture trap
He had his rope of hope
But at the end of his
rope
He needed a hand but
there was none
And then
That night his mother
died, he didn’t cry
For his little mouthful
tears will be a dishonour
To a mother who was
nurture and succour
No more heart to hear
is fear and pry
He had his lamp of
faith
But that limp mirage
was fate
He needed a light but
there was none
So then
With unanchored hope he
ordered his spirit’s grief
Through the darkest
alleys and the highways of the castaways, he gropes
With wilderness for his
pillow, loneliness for a companion, he probes
He knew his grief won’t
be brief
Now emperor of
uninhabited places
Of his father, there
were no traces
He called a star to be
his brother and the moon a sister
And the cloud slammed
the door on his tender voice
From then
The moon died in his
sky
That night took his
rope
That night stole his
hope
That night was his one
last try
And that night he sold
his soul
And there and then the
birth of an enfant terrible, a troll
He was now broke and
broken, a blade of darkness
What then? What pelts
of peppered provocations?
When heaven tries the
patience of a saint
Johnson bade a final
good-bye to good old night
With discordant choir
of unnamed ghosts they sang a requiem to light
From the epicentre of
savage depths, a lethal angel sent
With the forgotten old
gods and surrogate deities
They forged a ferocious
cathedral of atrocities
Dark, dreary and eerie
“This is home”, Johnson said
And here darkness is
message, massage and passage
Where tragedy ripens
Now then,
Where are the guilty
bystanders?
Johnson once a sweet
morning lark now cunning night owl
Harvest of earth’s
darkest hour, there they prowl
In this sacred rite of
disorientation, blame not the bartenders
Oaths of vengeance were
made: blood and deed
With a bleeding reed
screed in the creed
Inked, ringed,
dreadlocks and tortuously tattooed
With Johnson’s terror,
Hitler’s just a footnote
Even so
On this tortured lines
God did not border to
write straight anymore
Johnson a pain in the
molar, not a minor tremor
This is not a
survivor’s script. A witness whines
Of a reserved plot of
weeds in our tidy garden
Like an angry librarian
am mortally saddened
To tell this tall tale
stewed in humour: how mad can a mango make a man go?
That far Johnson went,
I won’t dye the truth
Overpriced! Like a
tomato freshly plucked from Buhari’s Nigeria
One last night
His presence made the
living envied the dead
Upon a deal with a
resident malevolence the sea sees.
Washed his face and
wrote his sins
He looked up, smiled
and said: the tide will come, and shred
This withered writ.
For no tome of alien
gospels can make him contrite
He needed table talks
on life’s menu and there was none
With the weight of the
world’s anger upon his grave’s lid
Here lies he. In this
dark vault, dead and buried: Johnson the left-handed.
Every now and then
I pray for him before a
wooden saint
Who neither blink an
answer nor fling a frown
Then and now.
Michael Umameh
A VOICE COMMANDS ME: ‘CRY!’ - - Michael Achile
Umameh
A voice commands me:
‘Cry!’
And I answered, ‘What
shall I cry?’
Of the hidden extras:
The withered grey hairs of
wild flowers
And the poisoned honey of
their breaths
And the world’s leadership
totters, tethered in tatters
Dressed in tamed
omnipotence
Standing solid on the
grounds of false floors.
Don’t you see, vultures on
the bodies of slain children?
A voice commands me:
‘Cry!’
And I answered, ‘What
shall I cry?’
Of the forbidden extra-regular:
The fate of our blue
planet in cauldron
And the nested belching
queues of filths
And the haemorrhaging feet
of mass anxieties
Seething in myths of
supremacy
Gulping a vast cocktail of
bruit as fruits
Don’t you see, squadron of
iron eagles, inaugurating sky burials.
A voice commands me:
‘Cry!’
And I answered, ‘What
shall I cry?’
Of the maddening
extraction
The irredeemable skilled
hunter of the online
And the awful ease of
seduction and obsession
And drowning in the ocean
of prints, inks and links
Laced with frenzies and
pretences
Well adjusted to hell and
the whirlpools of tired habits
Don’t you see? I can’t
find a room for myself in myself.
A voice commands me:
‘Cry!’
And I answered, ‘What
shall I cry?’
Of the frightening
extraterritorial.
Africa is where my heart
lies
And there, I know which
scream is mine
And there, green grass
withers, fresh flowers fades.
The drawbridge is a
pretending wall
Yet the thorn is a thing
of beauty, if it wears the rose.
Don’t you see, rumbling
stars in the African sky?
Africa’s awakening! And I
am running with the stars tonight!
Michael
Achile Umameh
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