No one comes from where I come from
No soul one single season on the soil survives
And stays soft – snail-soft simpleton or dumbbell-soft
Yes, you can’t come from where I come from and get soft
Rock-hard land, rocky soil growing timber, where to breathe
You wrestle, like Jacob, poor soul wrestling for a blessing
Striding barefoot, combing forests
Day by day, dawn to dusk
Hewing hills, cracking granite with bare teeth
Raiding caves, hot breath blowing trees
Wrestling fairies – resident fairies
Resident in the air
In hills, in trees.
You can’t come from where I come from
And go soft; rock-hard soil growing timber
Where you wrestle to live, combing forests barefoot
Flitting from valley to mountain, fighting fairies
Chewing blazing coals, spitting volcanoes
Facing demons, fixing sphinxes
Like Elijah, or the Baptist
Fighting, scrambling
Child of struggle, born of battle
Man and bird jostling for windfalls
Watched over by giant rats on sentry duty
Palace-powered sentries tending junctions
Pious hunters everywhere, fondling charms
Raking cash, creating wealth for hangers-on.
You battle for wood
You battle for food
You battle for air
Hot air hourly fouled by UFOs
UFOs pouring oil on boiling hills
You battle for life, fighting fairies
Resident fairies – resident in space
Sprinting, sweating, running errands
For countless dads, countless mums
And other kin you hardly know; you
Scramble for light, you scramble for life
In a cave so stuffy you wrestle to breathe
Clay pot on your head like a weight of sin
As you comb field after field for fallen fruits
And dried out twigs, plying bush paths for water
Drinking water springing from a communal brook
Sacred brook that’s swimming pool and laundry bowl
One sacred brook that’s sundry things to sundry beings.
Day by day you visit the village square via the brook
Via the farm, market and a potting shed named school
Where you’re fed at the feet of cane-wielding teachers
Hungry teachers teaching toothless souls to say ‘cheese!’
Big trees yielding shade, green fruits hanging overhead
Swinging, winking like deadly sins on Jezebel’s chest
Your head spinning, ringing, warning bells ringing
Pouring you pure panegyrics, praising your star
Singing startling songs of your hopeless peers
Countless cohorts in teeming cities trapped
Of hopeless peers lost like silly hounds
Of legions swept off to spirit planets
Spirited off by drunken whirlwinds.
Day by day you visit the potting shed named school
Where you’re fed by famished teachers
Under the shadow of mighty trees
Green fruits winking
Warning bells ringing
Brittle breeze tickling your soul
Mimicking plastic fans in foreign climes.
Day by day you’re taught to see the school in life
Or teacher – cane-wielding schoolteacher
Hard ground shaking you, shaping you
Blast furnace yielding gold.
You can’t come from where I come from
And go soft; rock-hard soil growing timber
Hard castle stood on solid rock, not quicksand
Where, borrowing thunder’s fire and lightning’s
Power, you pierce through rocks to taste honey
Where you wade through fire to fetch water
Fire-eater’s heaven where you’re judged by
Nothing but the fire in your bones, where
Eyes trained on God, you’re trained to
Chant: ‘In your own eyes stay small!’
FOLU AGOI