Titi

Titi
Ure ever beautiful
like the sun
like the flowers bloom
like the gush of waters from many fountains formed
like lilies in the land of smiles and tranquillity
jewellery adorns your natural adornments
make up oppressed by the beauty of your
dark skin
your beaming eyes of magnetism
your fragile hands
your tender skin


Ure ever beautiful like
the Nubian princess
at the streams
With you neck exposed and regal

Ure the beauty
Of pyramids
The lush landscape of Babylon
The wealth of Solomon
The breath of Zanzibar
The kiss of Niger River
The breasts of peaks of Idanre
The voice of Yemoja



You are the Orisa
I worship secretly
Secreting flames of heartfelt love
Burning incense of desire
Make sacrifices at the table cloth of inadequacy
Moaning at imagined fantasy

You are the obi
I gnaw at
In the morning
You are my Obi that
Tightens my heart in a strong grip
And release in a strange lease.
You are the mischief of Esu Odara
With the swagger of Yeye Osun
You are the tender leaves of Ife and the rain forest

You are a woman for the rich man
Not a poet like me
Not a poet sonofabirch

Fabrication

When you drop me like a pin
Know that I am a needle
Lost, peradventure, never found
Patiently waiting
At the sidewalks
For only a tailor eye.

I have tried to mend
To sew differences
To knot faiths
Bringing rhythm into your boring sequence

I am a needle
Sharp with memories of us
Always at a personal worship of your tender skin
Hurting and loving-giving pleasure

I have tried not to mute
I have cried, I have walked with my bare foot
All seams seems at a dying stage
When the doctors, sew the heart with advice.



I am no bait
For your anger
No balm for your indecisiveness
There are no crevices to hide
For I am no one’s fiddle
I am that small needle
That leaves you with a riddle

You are my wool-my fabric
On which without,
There is no existence-
That, I crave intact.

But we are fastly worn
So tenderly torn threadbare with silence
For when I try to mend
You render signs of farewell

I am a needle
Lost in transit
On the rug of temptation and confusion
In your purse of disrespect
In your weave-on, staying.
All I need is the strength of fabric without fabrication
All I need is your spirited love without silence
Or
There is a wide pool of designer clothes from China
There are a heap of China-made garbs in Yaba
And a thronging of mini-skirts in Victoria Island boutiques.

At the Walls of Gaza Strip

We are at the walls
We have lost our virginity
Under the hospitable stars
Behind the brushing bushes
And on the seats of cars with seasoning kisses

We are at the walls
Where we fingered the fingerling
And tinkered the chamberlain
That was looking and rebranding



We can do it
With the can do spirit of town
Where condemned condoms are hidden from frowns

BE Warned
But they are warmed in bed
By the tease of money, wealth and fame
To the contracts of thighs



Churches and Mosques in their fold
When they fold up in the evening
A new life unfolds
Holy Ghost fire dims for one terrible blazing fire
Hadith hides from the shawl of Haram



We are at the walls
Of Marx and Tolstoy
Home of the troubadours and trouble makers
“Its a mad hall of presidents”
Residing in the innards

We are the walls
Where favours ends at Gaza Strip
Except there is some stripping and some wailing.

To Femi; a Poem to a Bloody Blogger

inset Efemena Adagama in an Art Class.

I appreciate the poem written to me by Efemena Adagama but I do not consider myself as intelligent. In fact, I have never deemed it fit to add "intelligent" to my profile. I am just myself. Creative at least.I and Efemena met on facebook and he happens to be one of the poets that I respect a lot. I have read some of his poems and have encouraged him to publish.

TO FEMI

He who meets you meets a white-haired professor
He who meets you feels the charming wisdom of OAU
And he who knows you has known literature
Is Ife not known for its intellectual rascality
and its intellectual tower of bookism spanning years
Are you not the iroko of letters and letters of ink
that have been used by us in defining its name
I spread my books on the floor - walk on
I spread my pen on the floor - walk on
He who meets you meets a white-haired professor
And I have met a white-haired professor here

March

March in my papermache
Strewn it till it stinks
I have lost sense of style since Sinatara
I have unlatched my belts of love since Abacha
Smash the moulded heated head
Tests are over-Inspection over.
Test results look likes insults
So want to insult, sorry has no salt



March
Make your point
In my pointed pointillism
Ask the film for a doctored documentary
I am a mad man
Seen it all-Fucking all
Like fucking Jesus on the fucking walk
On the storm.
Fuck it!

I have found the lady

to share my hands with
to make sonnets, songs, stories
and children
to breath out our love with childbirth
a child with my eyes, her nose and heartbeats.

I HAVE FOUND A LADY
To charge me
And caress my often roughened hair
To pray
As my fears sometimes go over board

I have found the lady
Be my pair
In this world called Vanity Fair
To teach me how to truly love,
Love without loathing.

I am but a lover’s disciple
Waiting to close distances
To walk on turbulent seas
Waiting
To hold you in my arms.

I need a lady

to share my dreams, my fears with
to lie and love with
from now and forthwith
to share my wit.

to free me from
the fetters of pain
to twine us with
ropes of longing

A lasting sigh of honey



In need of no jar shape
capable of cancer
with her quick temper

In her stead a queenly stature
of corresponding heartbeats
Rhyme, Rhythm, Synchronicity
of temperate mood




My hands on rapturous warm bodice

A queen of succulent kiss
of sunlight smile (even in brazen weather)
of precious eyes and belly button.

Deranged

Deranged

I am not a writer
all that is written being before written
or else-written off.
For copyrights are due to careful copying
not coping

The flow is getting
Dry
like rivers hit by peeled sun from
the covers

I am in a pub
all that matters with the pub-"leasher"
where beer is beared
and broke is bloke.
Hey Jonny, hows work today?
Work has worked itself out.



pockets dug
regal pretense
cowed in the pockets
thin as cow drivers.

to quit is to quilt
spirals of unwanted pattern

to accept is to axe intercept
splashing of raging blood showers.

Johnny, you can do it, can't you
I can't
this is not a CANteen
ask Obama, what he found out.

Who I am doesn't matter no more
that is a gimmick of a whore
you know the law is an ass?
even after all the hassles.



I am not a writer
nor a poet
all that, comes from a liar
I cannot compare myself to Twain
as all I want to say has been beaten
by acid rain.



Femi Morgan 6/10/2010

You are the sunlight
so bright as friendship,
you are the smile of graceful lines,
you are a friend I just met,
you are a story writer that the world awaits.

I like you, this lady from fruitful Benue
where I hear that they treat their men well. I hear they are full at their stomachs.
you are from the languishing hill of greenery,
of grand sounds and dance,
of black and white Zebra pride.
...

Where their wives are beautiful and busty,

all things that grow grow in its own bounds

Benue
mother of flowing rivers
father of finely carved shores
gift to mother earth
first of its kind.

Benue of irresistible kisses
Irresistible
of gladdened warmth
from the embrace of kind people
Benue of boats
gliding in and gliding out
like man and woman in the covers
you are from the languishing hill of greenery
of grand sounds and dance
of black and white Zebra pride

YOU SEE, ALL MY FOREFATHERS!

I have forgotten the tales
The songs and the proverbs
And I am left with the seeming inspired adverts.
I am or I was told,
The reincarnate of the palm wine tapper
All I have tapped is the little oil money in different taps
No more trees for tributes
Only rich enough for none but myself.

I am the swimmer at the dancing braids of the lake
The favoured tadpole of the gods,
I guess I was told,
Alas, the waters have gone green with envy for land
The purity of sounds has left for the bubbles of fangs
Nothing can swim, not even me
Except nylon, plastic and industrial spills.

I am the broken hearted teacher who says textbook fantasies
Galvanising theories at the detriment of truth-bitter as it is.
My forefathers were warriors
Dying in drowning truth bottles
Migrating at the disgust of in-betweens
But at this behest of incest
We gather like insects to watch our denigration
To what we call “better generation”.

We have lost our will to fight
So we must lose our will to laugh.
We have left the saving grace of a nation to politicians
We have cried to God but have forgotten who we are and used to be
We have died the real death
And what we are now, LIVING SHADOWS.

We are now foregrounded paintings of market activity
We are now huge clowns at stage to other nations
We are now Soap Operas that takes the review of all and Oprah
We are now newspaper columns without conscience
We are now a people without with leap and without patience
We are now, a land, not bare but with weeds-the land itself moaning at the many boils on its skin.

Let us rise and clear the land
Cultivate the soil
Resurrect the buried values
Prune out the struggling weed
Send emissaries to the fishes with a sign of a white flag
Make sacrifices at crossroads
Plant new trees to wade off the strong winds from our backyards
Let us never forget who we are.

I am no son of a slave
Though slavishly trained
I need no bully as brother
I need no sully as sister
I need no Guerrilla as Government
I need no ruthless rut as redeemer
I need no menace as messiah
I need no sets of Pillagers as sets of Political Party
I need no faulty voter’s vortex
With nature, with sounds and with men
You all can see, all my forefathers lived in free and fair contest.
10/07/2010

So far...The Book Reviews are coming

The oxymoronic title of the pint-sized collection of poems largely ignites the socio-political satire intended by the promising poet. Armed with a simple language couched in metaphorical expressions. The poet ensures his themes run deeper into the bellies of 'the guilty' and 'the murderers of sleep'.
The Sun

Morgan uses his lines to abhor injustice, poverty,lawlessness and ignorance. His poems evoked emotions, sympathy and regret . It is a voice from the clandestine world calling mortals to stand up and face their future, and that no excuses sufficed to remain in deplorable conditions.
The Nation

The book expresses Oluwafemi's candid view of the ( Nigerian) society in which he lives.
Tell Magazine

Via satiric pieces, the author questions the lack of progress caused by recalcitrance etched in the hearts of those at the helm of affairs. And if you don't agree with his angst rhymes and endless fatalism, you will be subdued by the veracity akin to them.
ThisDay
Politically blunt and an outpouring of a fearless pen handled by a filled skull; the book provides a graphic perspective on variegated happenstances shaping the metaphoric thinking of the motley occupant of the Nigerian landscape. It is more than just a collection of poems.
Ayodele Obajeun
Scribbler and maker of travelogues

This collection is a brewery of the pains of the societal squalor . The music
of silence is betrayed by the dialectics of drummings, using laughter and dance to liven the rhythm of mass resistance...the poet has made a clear stand.
Kunle Ajayi
Author, I Will Write a Poem

The title, Silent Drummings may be taken to mean the quiet or gentle pangs of the oppressed, the disposed, the poor and the suffering masses of the Nigerian/African society. The work is set in a post-colonial era, exposing the horrors of tyranny...

Shvoong.com

I miss you

I miss you

cannot get you on phone

that has made me alone



I need you

where are you?

without you, life's easy walk turns to hew!

Femi Morgan(2010)

A Ship at Half Mast

A Ship at Half Mast

Lying there is Lugard’s Yard
Set asail with pomp but now in the hands of pirates
Floating Disaster is what I am called by the trim sailors
Who party, part with cheap deals but avoid popularity
‘all the rest is sinking sand’

If pimples were patches
I have so many
So many spills of blood, brains and crude oil
So many colours and shades of whatever-happens
Without any sense of anchor.
‘all the wait is sinking sand’

The storms have always come
But with a calm sailor; knowing nothing to do
Helter -skelter are mere dance steps
On the fort and the basement
Like church dis-services,
I am a ship at half mast.

Jonah’s sleep is longer
For when the votes of belongings cast
They are rigged.
There is buying and selling in the temple
And knives are rampant.
There are no brooms to sweep, no swathe of keeps.

I am err of the father
I am disjointed in the sprung
I HOUSE the children of LUCIFER
‘we are legion for we are many’.

May day! May day!
Our strong people’s salute, expectedly.
We live not in glass house but in broken bottles.
Venting our angst on vendor’s stands
But mulling silence later
For I am a Ship at half mast
Big HOME for pickles, pricks and pick-pockets.

I am the pride of many ships; abandoned for reclamation
It is hard to be born again when the leeches stick tough at your old back.

So there is no need to holler
‘ Sir, There is a ship very far from us, it’s at half mast’
‘Must be the Floating Disaster waiting to be history’.

FEMI MORGAN
16 th April 2010

Free Vanity

As at when I wrote this poem on Facebook, the response was great. One of the comments that caught my fancy the most is Michael Izuchukwu Offiah's. It was like a short review of the work.
' I can discern at least three distinct uses of 'free' in "Free Vanity": conditions forced upon us about which we have no choice; the abandon with which a few acquire illegal luxury; and the dishonesty behind some promises of free this or tha...t in the country. Many are wont to give the poem a political interpretation. But i think the poem transcends mere realism. It asks or, rather, answers metaphysical questions. "Vanity upon vanity, all is vanity," says the wiseman. If everything has no intrinsic value, then, even freedom itself is worthless: nothing is free; the only free thing is vanity.How free, really, are we, if at all? From this perspective, the poem takes on deeper, more explorable and less cumbersome dimensions. Stanza eight is a piece of beauty. Keep writing, brother.'



FREE VANITY
Street poetry
Free vote; no free chance to revolt
Free Rigging, Free moping
FREE THIS, FREE THAT
Free Legislature; free laws no sure
Nothing is free

Free Press; freest chance to impress;free stress
Free Government, free free money in some tents
FREE THIS, FREE THAT

Free Vanity

Free speech;Free guns at reach
Free oil; free toil
Nothing is free

Free Jega*, Free me ginger!*
Free baba*, free wahala!*
Free shitters, free but forced packers

Free Vanity

FREE THIS, FREE THAT
IT CAN NEVER BE AS FREE AS TRIDAF*
Free inflation, free unemployment, free implication.

Free votes for free goats
Free gloat, free notes.

Free nation, Freely shared hunger invasion

Free exercise books and text books
Nothing is free and true in the budget books

FREE THIS, FREE THAT
NOTHING IS FREE, EXCEPT FREE VANITY

Free vanity.

13-7-2010



Tridaf: a hostel in Ibadan Nigeria which housed female students. It was expensively paid for by parents who sent their children to non-boarding schools.

Jega: Althahiru Jega is the new Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman

Ginger: Weed; Marijuana-the name given to it by street artist, Terry G.

Baba: means father and other related meanings

Wahala: means trouble in Hausa language

திஸ் Place

This Place

This place,
Where a lady searches for a job,
Gets a b. job.
This place,
Of degrading grades,
And graduating grouse.

I will never speak evil of my country
I will never point fingers.

This place of flying filth
This place of promise like a leaking pail.
There is rhythm in the weeping bunch
Wrapped in 50 years of laughing stock.
This fine place
Indeed, this fine place.

This Place

This place,
Where a lady searches for a job,
Gets a b. job.
This place,
Of degrading grades,
And graduating grouse.

I will never speak evil of my country
I will never point fingers.

This place of flying filth
This place of promise like a leaking pail.
There is rhythm in the weeping bunch
Wrapped in 50 years of laughing stock.
This fine place
Indeed, this fine place.

இன் Ernest

POEM TITLE: In Ernest
I may follow the way of Hemingway one of these days
some things are hemming
that may make me sell my rights away like Fleming
I may follow the way of Hemingway one of these days.
laughter is like grains grinding
all that makes me lose my apetite in the dinning.
Femi Morgan (2010)
femimorgan@gmail.com