SONG OF OLODUMARE

 In my eyes I wear the distance between

the Earth and the Oort Clouds

I sail at the back of Halley Comet and taunt

a billion quivering quasars as I pass them by

I dive through a black hole a zillion years 

and surface at the backyard of a trillion stars

my journey undone

Who am I to question the infinite blackness

of the eye of the universe that gulps up the

endless white a thousand time and still 

remains impregnably dark? so dark the sun 

cannot strike a lining on its surface

I began my journey before your birth

Oh Milky Way when the universe was a 

million desolate babels in the cauldrons 

of melting seas whirlwinding dust and 

fuming gasses

I'm still abroad all at the finger tip of 

Olodumare my exploration ever undone

OLODU - I am still ranging, will I ever arrive 

the frontiers of this infinitives?

I have sailed  a trillion years and still 

counting and missed my way a million times

in a single alleyway of yours and still

questing

When will I come to the end of this beam of 

light lamp lit at the door of just a single

restroom of that alleyway were there an end

to your endlessness?

Would I ever find the answers to my endless

puzzles of your endlessness wonderment?

I, a whiff of dust, a pint of water, a spark of

flame, a puff of air, congealed into this tiny

tadpole waving my brittle tail every time I'm

given the chance to dance like a bubble in 

seafoam, a single bubble in the seafoam

Who am I to walk the length of your eyes, 

the breadth of your iris and the forever ever 

expanding perimeters of your KUN FA 

YAKUN that encodes all there is, all there has

ever been and all that shall be?

Can a tadpole walk the length of this sea and

survive to bray a eureka?

Let me just but count the blessing of being a 

witness to this aftermath of  LET THERE BE

LIGHT

In this infinitesimal stretch of this endless 

halo between the Cup of Your Hand and get 

lost somewhere in the pouch where all

humanity and the fauna and flora of this 

Earth fit just like a stick of match, just like a s

stick of match

*Olodumare : Yoruba name for the Supreme 

God

(C) Kamarudeen Mustapha 

All rights reserved.

EVERYDAY WE RISE

 Everyday we rise

We step on our graves spread

Away beneath our feet

The sun grows

Our shadows grow with it

The sun sets

Our shadows set with it 

Until consumed by the twilight

And the shroud of dead pan dark

Of the night covers us

Till the second day

When we, may rise

            Oblivious of our graves spread away

            Beneath our feet

            Oblivious of God behind the dome

            Over our heads

            Oblivious of our shadows

            Mimicking our every act

            Oblivious of our days

            Like carrots in the mouth of time

            Oblivious of everything

            Except the vanity of our hearts

(C) Kamarudeen Mustapha

All rights reserved

“WRITING AND ME” – Kamarudeen Mustapha

I believe I was born to write. The urge to write is innate in me. It surged within me long before I actually knew how to write.  Poetry was my other name.  I was so passionate about it before the uncertainty of things in Nigeria weaned me of it. When I was growing up, in my primary school, District Council School, Oke–Ola, Iwo, we were taught no poetry nor nursery rhyme, but then everything written in verse delighted me, every poetical expression fascinated me, until a cousin of mine (Basiru) – God rests his soul, brought me a book of nursery rhymes. He attended his own primary school at a village in Oke – Osun. I monopolized the book for two months. I was just eleven, I created my first sets of English rhymes then – though I had been writing things poetic in Yoruba Language earlier. Thanks to all those classical Yoruba literary masterpieces, Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole, Igbo Olodumare. Aditu Olodumare, etc. by D.O. Fagunwa (my father’s books which I had also made my own) since then I have been writing poems – and I wrote hundreds of them in 1982 – long poems patterned after those in the book  "Pageantry of longer poems’’. 

I finished my primary school in 1976, and poor me, I couldn’t go to a secondary school. Reasons – poverty – poverty – broken home – Nigerian factors [demons that unmake prospective genii]. I was forced to learn photography in 1977 – Read my short story titled “I need someone to send me to school”. My failed efforts to go to secondary school inspired that story. True, I couldn’t go to school, I taught myself. I bought books and magazines. I read Times International and Newsweek, American magazines. Nigeria was better off then. Despite everything, poor me could afford buying those magazines in the 70’s, something I can’t do now. Those magazines are not even being imported to impoverished Nigeria of today like before. They are now for super elites.                             

I knew a lot about the world then than now. Zimbabwe got her independence before my very eyes. Iran and Iraq waged their war boldly before me. I knew Indira Gandhi one on one [through reading however] but now, I hardly know what happens in Nigeria if not for Facebook and other social platforms – I was closer to news especially in newspapers and magazines then than I am now. I read I read I read, I became better even than those in secondary school, especially in English and Literature –in –English. I did this because I knew as a writer, I had to know English language. In 1982, I sent my first collection of poems ‘’ Listen to a black man singing’’ to Vintage Press in USA, a vanity publisher. I couldn’t publish the book then because I couldn’t afford the $3,000 I was asked to pay. It was not until 1987 that my poems were first published in the media  - in New Nigeria Newspaper, Kaduna, in Triumph Newspaper, Kano, The Arts and Literary Editors then, who edited the poetry column known as,  PROEM, Mallam Bashiru Al–Bishak even gave me an award for an article on how to make Poetry popular in Nigeria. I also remember that the poems in Triumph Newspaper then were preferred then in bilingual – i.e. English/Hausa, English/Yoruba, etc.  The Title of one poem of mine I remember is, “Igba kii to lo bi Orere”. I can’t remember the English title now, but it dealt with dynamics and non – permanence of things. I also published a poem, “When the heaven shall fall down” in MAY ELLEN EZEKIEL’s (MEE of blessed memories) Classique. Then I had only Primary education, but I had taught myself to some extent and my poems were deemed publishable.

I loved writing very much then, I got to Zaria in 1983 and by 1985, honestly, I had completed my first Hausa poetry collection, “Sautin Saurayi” though this was never published because my mastery of Hausa language was poor and not only that, the fund was not there.

….TO BE CONTINUED

About Poet Kamarudeen Mustapha

This blog is written by me. It is committed to publish literary articles, like reviews of literary books of old and recent – whichever catches my fancy. I will also be writing other literary things apart from reviews. In the same vein, extracts of my prose and poetry works will be featured from time to time. It promises to be exciting and visitors will never be disappointed.

Thanks for dropping–by and you are welcome on board.

Your kind supports through feedbacks, comments and enquiries will be well appreciated. Kindly drop your thoughts on poetkamar@gmail.com