Burning bush
(For Christopher Okigbo, with oja flute
and a slow Atilogwu orchestra)
By Chimalum Nwankwo
The Okpatu hills tremble in my dreams
The drapery of green has turned ochre
Our prison walls of hatred and pain
Explode over the shoulders of the hills
Stifled groans echo your death now
The hills and our hearts suppress something
Like our horizon of strange dark clouds
Where the python of hope heaves on distress
Christopher! Warrior poet!
Blessed with the power of the water of idoto
I smell your angry blood on the bush fires
The hills writhe with your wasted passion
And without shame and without remorse
without the fear of the silence of the groves
Idiots step over your mantle of blood
As they do over the legs of morons
Christopher! Warrior poet!
Surrender the magic of the empty scabbard
At the point where thunder kissed your cheek
And all the oracles spilled hallowed satchels
When you speak with Chukwuma Nzeogwu
Tell him that jackals are now in the grove
Virgin fronds, eggs shells, fingers of chalk
All is dust and blinding smithereens
Tell him they have stolen the magic of the mask
And robbers now play diviners and carvers
Tell him our world is now a pitiful weakling
It groans with the burden of an elephant corpse!
Christopher! Warrior poet!
Dike ji ofo jide ogu. Like the ancestors
You read the goddess book of war and blood
That war and blood are the blights of flowers
That poison could be the wine of honour
The holy water of the garden of sweets
When jackals stomp into the sacred groves
To begin a parade of the wild animals
Christopher! It is now a parade of wild animals
It is the season of wailing souls, ugulu di egwu!
Terror mounts sentry at the gates of sleep
It is a season of wailing souls, echi di ime!
These days are nightmares of iron hoofs
With nights of flint and red coals of pain
It is a deep night of wailing souls, abani di egwu!
A season of the terror of knotted things
How all bear the sermons of jackals
Of mongrels glowering over starving babies
It is a season of beastly inuagurals
Of red fangs and growls and howls of blood
A yellow for six on a trumped gold throne
Surrounded by hyenas in scarlet cassocks
It is a carnival of stolen red caps
And of eagle feathers mixed with chicken feathers
Of beaded crowns from ancient nightmares
Of clowns pulsing with poisoned daggers
Resplendent rogue angels in gold on white
Scornful of detection scornful of law
Because the air is ruled by a king of thieves
In brazen majesty from barns to groves
It is a carnival of such giddy heights
A risen Jadum will cry for another death
Such saccharine chants such cheap magic
Lace the air with soporific pain
With mass agony in sweet refinement
With murderers and swindlers clinking glasses
Chalices chalices in a smell of blood
With people’s pain elixir! Elixir!
Christopher! Warrior poet!
I tell you again. It is a parade of wild animals
Our world is now a pitiful weakling
It groans with the burden of an elephant corpse!
•Culled from Of the Shadows and the Prisons of Fire