Olutunde Poets Page

A POEM FOR MY HOMELAND


You who are my kinfolks
Who dwell on the land of my forefathers
Where the sun is draped in metaphysical hazes
And where yams speak of forgotten traditions.
Think not of what you see on television
But of the words I scribe to you
and if all of you listen carefully all of you will see
The truth drip from my words like blood.
My thirst has tasted what your hungry eyes
Can not witness beyond your fragile mind.
I have survived long enough to be a messenger
A bearer of bad news. A griot with stories
That will fill your sagging ears with grief.
You have wasted good palm wine and valuable time
celebrating and toasting to my good fortune.


I have become successful at existing as a prisoner
Of social lies and never ending wishful dreams.
I have eaten beans from a can dated a year ago.
I walk through streets scattered with dry bones
Where the young's cries of hunger are turned to icicles
Before their tears touches their evaporated cheeks.
As you continue to toast to my good fortune:
Never spending any of your days wondering
How can a devil's playground be any different from any other.
Realizing not, what my eyes have already feasted upon
As I push on, striving to find the street paved in gold.


Your ideas of American living are no more
Real than the images of a white Jesus Christ.
We have been tricked into believing in a land
No different than our own………………..
Where feuds turn endowments into burdens and blues.
Where soul snatchers masquerade through dark back alleys
Shedding the blood of future warriors in the name of liberty
And stomping fear into our bleeding hearts
To make us tremble at their vengeance of hating
What they don't have the balls to stand up and be.
So drink and celebrate no longer for my fortune
Of erected myths and fables around my swollen head.
I will soon flee. I shall return home to stand before my shrine
And meditate on ways to cleanse the path of the newcomers .

Written by Olutunde


Olutunde Poets Page