{"id":3764,"date":"2019-09-05T12:37:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T12:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mtls.wpcenter.io\/issue24\/?p=3764"},"modified":"2026-10-14T16:03:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T16:03:19","slug":"tade-akin-aina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/tade-akin-aina\/","title":{"rendered":"Tade Akin Aina"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 
\n(from the ongoing collection, The Wanderer\u2019s Pulse<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dakar<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Here all the Signares of Saint Louis
\na home true, theirs all theirs, finally found.
\nStomping their swagger to rhythms natural
\nthat with silver-blue swirling sea waves, winds
\ndry and gritty crackling from the desert north
\ngive you the many Gods, deities and Mammon
\nmigrating from Rome, Mecca, Touba, Kaolack.
\nLove, passion, beauty, noise and arguments here
\nchoreographed in troupes that artfully waltz
\nCheikh Anta Diop’s imagined Egypt, worlds made
\nin heritage to the race’s proud bloodline
\nthat keep this city confident, singing, dancing,
\nthinking, remaking the lonely defiant philosophy
\nthat define and redefine our continent
\ndefying the dirt, dust, dross, din of overwhelming
\npoverty, want, disease while overflowing with hope.
\nHere, freedom’s muscles in elegance flex
\nHere, stories in coral beads are told:
\nBeads of prayers tell our lives
\nBeads of sweat glisten our brows
\nBeads of honor crown our heads
\nBeads of beauty jiggle our waist
\nBeads of pride adorn our ankles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deadlines<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Despair, the Lagos mob’s necklace
\ncruel, my chest, weight invisible
\npress down. In gasoline sweat
\nmy being drenched, day time nightmare,
\nstrange ghosts and demons my inner
\nself haunt as with deadlines I battle
\nspinning my creative lines dead, unburied,
\ntheir paths woven in my creation famine,
\nshuttles of fixated endless refinements
\nin this cold land of summers’ unbearable
\nheat that my brain fries, my day drains,
\nbut sure I am that Skye’s commission in due
\ntime will be finished, my salvation without
\nan army certain, my promise to redeem true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kampala<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pearl waist beads on a maiden nation,
\nYour hills dance in graceful slow motion
\nTo winds and clouds that gently caress
\nValleys of banana groves on shores of the Great Lake.
\nOn red soil memory mounds you ponder the many
\nStories, sad and sweet, of empires and kingdoms
\nBuried in blood and gore on hands and hearts
\nOf kings, pretend emperors, freedom fighters turned landlords.
\nBacks bent with weights of guilt, grunts of abomination
\nUnmentionable in the tongues of the deities and ancestors,
\nYour spirits groan under alien traditions imposed, a lineage birthed by
\nLord Lugard with too many present day\u2019s strutting heirs.
\nYour national spirit struggle as it reenact martyrdom across generations
\nReclaiming shrines for saints of power, faith and want.
\nHome of the red earth, abused, you thrive, never giving up,
\nYour maternal pride solid, receiving on your bosom child, woman and man,
\nWounded, tired, mutilated in body, soul and mind,
\nTheir cruel cuts you heal, thirsty souls from endless journeys you water.
\nHope and forgiveness deep in scarred hearts you again inscribe.
\nChild bride nation, Spirit mother, pain and pleasure you equally bear
\nGathering your children many, saints, sick and wayward to your bosom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n


\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Merry me” Tonight<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I work internationally
\nFly night and day, sleep casually
\nBeds on rigs, hotels and bush stations.
\nI make change happen, get justice done
\nMake money work for rich and poor,
\nBuild banks and bridges
\nEngineer plants and seeds
\nConnect the world Wi-Fi and cell
\nKeep fragile peace, war wounds heal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am John, international John!
\nWeary change-maker, here so forlorn
\nBone- cold lonely in your Babylon.
\nIn drinks and caffeine I find joy
\nSeek love in supine embraces hot
\nEnsnared by your laser green shy glances.
\nSo, drink from my alien bounty pool
\nMy Cleopatra, my low hanging forbidden fruit,
\nMy Jezebel, star in my sultry tinted torpor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eat, drink and “merry me” tonight
\nMy bride price is Sterling, Euro and Dollar.
\nPardon my lack of graces, tipsy swagger,
\nDesperate rush to close the deal, your name,
\nAge and creed ignoring. I see the lurking Madam,
\nThe preening peacock pimp, sneaky concierge,
\nAll your pound of flesh waiting to carve.
\nYour svelte mystery, black pidgin modernity
\nIn hot dark passion waves drown me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s not talk tonight about
\nGenocide in Darfur, slavery in Nouakchott,
\nRape in Bukavu, hustling in Korogocho,
\nMutilation in Gulu, despair in Cape Flats.
\nLet’s rave tonight, make merry and enjoy
\nDo what Europe forbids, America abhor,
\nFaiths condemn, all secretly covet.
\nLet’s the virus dare, the germs taunt
\nSink all in surrender at this Aphrodite’s haunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mouths are Made for Better Things<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

All our dead died long before the Colonials
\nThe cemetery moved far from City center,
\nGhosts laid to writhe in suburban bush heat
\nThat native slums from colonials separate.
\nReservations they built, Government Reserved Areas
\nGRAs for white skin rulers, tongues perched on
\nHot stones spitting words through slit nostrils.
\nMouths they say are made for better things
\nLike eating chicken whole but not the bones,
\nFeet, head, wings all sweeter parts
\nExcept bits that the village gossip turns you,
\n‘God forbid bad thing’, tongue all loose
\nRestraint all gone, everyone\u2019s secrets revealed.
\nMouths they say are made for better things
\nLike smoking pipe tobacco lavender- perfumed,
\nDevilish cigars too, blue fumes evil spirits chasing.
\nThe colonialists spoke through their noses,
\nHeard with their eyes, meanings sketched
\nIn ethnography books, exotic tales of savage lore,
\nTribal moods on canvas that denied recognition,
\nUnderstanding, wisdom, intelligence, our knowledge deride.
\nThe cemetery they moved, bodies and bones they left
\nHomeless spirits to haunt our native souls at Ajele.
\nBut recalcitrant youth, forerunners of \u201cArea Boys”,
\nTurn tombs to, couch, beds and love nests where we sat,
\nGambled, smoked weed, sang, danced and dared
\nEvil spirits their heads raise if they can.
\nHere women and strangers travel escorted
\nAcross this dead cemetery of the forsaken dead.
\nWe are the only demons that walked the daylight
\nThe spirits that rode the wings of the night
\nBoys and men who the Colonizer’s Hades colonized.
\nEven now our masquerades speak through their noses
\nVoices of the dead that haunt the living, now we know
\nMouths have always been made for better things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n


\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A cock crows outside my window<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes, a cock crows
\nOutside my window,
\nSeventy-seven floors up
\nAll glass and concrete
\nBy the East River
\nI hear a cock crow,
\nNot once, not twice but thrice
\nAs my daily wage slave self I deny
\nIn affirmation of a free humanity.
\nI hear a cock crow
\nAt dawn in my head,
\nIn my heart, my being
\nAs every sunrise morning mists
\nAnother day’s drought dare in souls
\nWith cockcrow song ringing, beckoning
\nTimid tired selves arise on new day’s
\nTrails, trials, travails triumphs many.
\nAdventures and routine boredom clacking,
\nScreeching wheels, wailing brakes, train
\nStation crush, subway rush, children’s schools
\nHassles, sorry daily chores, workplace sore rash
\nAnxieties sprayed by hollowed-out bosses’
\nSour stench of work filled lifeless neuroses.
\nYes, a cock crows
\nOutside my window
\nAtop the dawn’s traffic riot,
\nDrill and din, dross and dirt,
\nMorning construction cacophony, confusion
\nOrchestrated in bad-tempered symphonies.
\nI hear a cock crow
\nOn my window sill
\nSunrise greeting cheerily
\nWelcoming new morn’s glassy mirage
\nAs we charge the red daze of our day’s desert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  (from the ongoing collection, The Wanderer\u2019s Pulse) Dakar Here all the Signares of Saint Louis a home true, theirs all theirs, finally found. Stomping their swagger to rhythms natural that with silver-blue swirling sea waves, winds dry and gritty crackling from the desert north give you the many Gods, deities and Mammon migrating from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3764"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4149,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions\/4149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}