Tade Ipadeola
Annals of the Gambia
I
James Island:
That frozen phallus of a canon stares
Endlessly upon a fecund, ageless sea.
Witness trees, weather beaten and gnarled
Affinitize with the elements,
Whispering the songs
Of Neptune when the wind is high.
This is James Island,
Spartan as the sun
Where the fittest marched in chains to merge
With futures alien as the skin of shipmasters.
History was here, woven into syntax
Of the rolling, intrepid waves. History,
Ghostly now and fading, was here
Material as the mineral of the sea.
my hut’s
by the beehive grove
l love sweet honey
but the bees wont let me be
bee bee bee!
your fangs are a dread to my breed
in the midst of pomp
and merry din
i thirst
in a dry
and
thirsty land
for want of juice
for want of life
sweet honey sweet
bee bee bee!
o that i could
but a lick of your comb
like a man should do- Dav udoinwang
Beautiful. Man, you restore my faith in poetry as a source of nourishment for the spirit.