LYRICS ON THE LIPS OF DEATH  by TOLA ADENIYI

Nature could not have created you all

For nurture and vulture

Perhaps so, perhaps not

Puzzles of age long past

 

Solomon there was

Possessor of all possessions possessable:

Gold, silver, copper and copious concubines

Marbled Mansions of monumental measures

 

Soon,

Solomon got served to maggots

Same celebrated Solomon skewed in earth sewers

Silky Solomon worshipped by the then world’s

Most feared warlords

Became just an item in my empire of skeletons

 

There was field Marshal Hannibal

Great son of Amilcar Bacarr

Easily the greatest military tactician known to man

The icon of Carthage , Rome ’s most dreaded foe

 

At the height of his expeditions

He had the whole of Europe under his thighs

Such was his fame and power

Chose elephants as weapons of war,

 

One day I summoned him

Grabbed his torso

And fed his huge frame to select maggots

As I did with Solomon’s before his

All the fame, all the fanfare

Came to naught at my imperial gate.

 

Countless others: men. Women

Young and Old

Regardless of pedigree

Or wretchedness of birth

Are meats at my blood soaked doorstep.

 

They called him Lincon!

A man of superfluous accomplishments

Deified by his people for recreating them

In furtherance of their destiny

Full of brains and meticulous planning

An unusual mortal this Abraham was

When I needed him for breakfast

I ordered him to brush his mouth and shave his chin

It was in that state I took his breath away

And invited another meat in the pipeline

To confirm to the world that his body

Was in my kitty.

 

Now the mansion called the White House has no meaning to him

Or him to it

Ownership does not extend beyond my Date

 

I, the Terminator of all terminators

Determine man’s leasehold

On the earth’s surface

When he is to be swallowed,

Swallowed

In the belly of the earth.

 

If you are in doubt

Ask the leading lights at Ibadan University

The likes of Osuntokun and Solanke

Oritshejolomi Thomas and Dike

 

Ask business mogul Abiola

Or the soldier politician Yar’Adua

Or run to Kano and find the luggage

In the cargo from Abuja

 

All their proud possessions

Now reside with other tenants

While their nurtured bodies

Have beautiful skeletons made.

 

As you hear my song, you may vilify me

Rain curses as usual

And give reins to your swelled frustrations;

Since you can not kill me

Or even a hair pluck off my skin

You can only moan and bemoan

Your endless losses.

 

But tarry a little

Look in your mind’s eye

Imagine in what state your father or

Mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, friend or lover

Long taken away by me

Now is

 

Imagine where your skeleton,

If you are lucky to have one

After I have devoured you,

Would be in years to come

 

Now, think less of self

Visit the grave yard

And pay me the honour

Assigned to me by

Your Creator.

 

By *Tola Adeniyi*. Saskatoon , Saskatchewan , Canada . July 6 2006

 

 

*TIME*

 

In the number equation,

iT is more variable than the fabled

Seven stages of a man’s life.

 

iT is Fortune’s best friend,

An eternal curse, to a Sorrow

Prolonged

 

iT is Joy’s soul mate,

An anathema to Pain,

And poison to Anxiety

 

Relish iT when you have iT

For iT yields to no mortal’s control

 

Time belongs to Eternity

Eternity alone owns Time

 

Today, you are rich,

Courted by all and sundry;

By the beautiful, the dainty,

The cultured, the sophisticated,

The dark-brown skinned, colour of the Bethlehem prince,

The pink skinned, colour of the leper,

The red skinned, colour of the tiger

And by the fat, the thin, and

The flat-bottomed twig

 

Tomorrow, the riches are gone

Position disappears and

Power relocates to the neighbour’s villa

 

Then, you are alone

Visitors to your gate

Are a rare sight

The rich and the mighty

A rare specie

Your address now unknown

Your phone number

Forgotten.

 

Time never stops.

Tick-tack tick-tack tick-tack

Pumping, expanding, collapsing,

Pumping, expanding, collapsing

Tick-tack tick-tack tick-tack….

 

–In soliloquy by Bottomley in *Deaths in the Thighs*

by Tola Adeniyi, Toronto 2000

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