WOLE SOYINKA; BEYOND THE TAILOR'S WHITE THREADS AND WHITE GARMENTS

                                      

  
Beyond the strands, lights and glories,
Beyond the thick linen beneath the prophesies,
Beyond the shackled rib cages and fighting skins,
Beyond the silences, cries and the lost voices,
Beyond the tortuous travail of an ink-man,
Beyond the tyrant voices of the lost poems,
Is a dying friar of a woke nation — woke in destruction and generational death.

Beyond the death of his kins and horsemen,
There is a twist in the tale of God.
My question is not of the God or gods,
That's an oasis to look beyond.
The garments speak for themselves,
The tired man looking to dispose jaded materials;
The recycled bin that hunt his generation in their sleep.

Beyond the pomposity are carved words,
Carefully knitted with utmost meticulousness,
Walking through rail tracks of a common man,
Rather than the lords who maketh them.
Beyond  the ambiguity,
Are lessons for  studious and unblurry generations,
Civilisations illiterates can pluck fruits from.

Beyond his plays of confusion,
Are superheroes in no capes,
Awakening the corpses of prison cells,
Telling the stories of an elite squad;
Of how they marched the firepower of successive  juntas,
The crocodiles, lions and tigers that preyed upon
Emaciated corpses to be sent to heaven so 'they' live in peace and luxury.

Beyond the pyrates of brotherhood,
Beyond the brotherhood of skulls and bones,
Were stories of intellects of the lower class,
Who wrote the clichés of the cannibals of the common day.
Beyond the violent lots who are pledgees of a cult,
Is a fraternity hero the hoodwinked the heat of the sun,
Brought a fair weather upon us.

Beyond the cries of theists and pagan fighters,
Is a freak and old priests,
Sang the glory of Egberi Elemosho.
From his breasts I learnt the stealthiness of Moremi;
To model my life after Bashorun Gaha in mightiness.
Beyond the criticism of those language critics,
Is a man who wrote culture in books and dirges,
In citadels and learning castles.

Beyond the tailor's white threads and brown garments,
Is a man carefully knitted together in deeds and honour,
Stories that are melodramatic and tragic,
Comedies of error and truism,
Hyperbole of when once the man died,
Sincere imagery of him being Abiku.
Beyond the high hills of Àké and the anthill of Ijebu;
A warrior that must not go down in dirt for the tribal marks did rest.

ODUNEWU ABDULHAKEEM OLATUBOSUN (ODUNKYMS)