From flesh
into phantom on the horizontal stone
I was
the sole witness to my homecoming...
Serene
lights on the other balcony:
redolent
fountains bristling with signs-
But
what does my divine rejoicing hold?
A bowl
of incense, a nest of fireflies?
I was the sole witness to my homecoming...
For
in the inflorenscence of the white
chamber,
a voice, from very far away,
chanted,
and the chamber descanted, the birthday of earth,
paddled
me home through some dark
labyrinth,
from laughter to the dream.
Miner
into my solitude,
incarnate
voice of the dream,
you will
go,
with me
as your chief acolyte,
again
into the anti-hill...
I was the sole witness to my homecoming...
"Lustra IV"
The
flower weeps, unbruised,
for
him who was silenced
whose
advent dumb-bells celebrate
in
dim light with wine song:
Messiah
will come again
After
the argument in heaven
Messiah
will come again...
Fingers
of penitence
bring to a palm grove
vegetable offering
with five fingers of chalk...
Framents out of the Deluge VI
from Limits
He stood in
the midst of them all
and appeared
in true form,
He found
them drunken, he found none thirsty among them.
Who
would add to your statue,
Or
in your village accept you?
He
fed them on seed wrapped in wonders;
They deemed
it a truth-value system,
Man out
of innocence,
And there
was none thirsty among them.
They
cast him in mould of iron,
And asked
him to do a rock-drill -
Man out
of innocence -
He drilled
with dumb-bells about him.
And
they took the key off
And they
hid the key of...
That none
may enter.
And
they took the hot spoils off the battle,
And they
shared the hot spoils among them:
Estates,
among them;
And they
were the chosen,
mongrel
breeds,
With slogan
in hand, of
won divination...
And
you talk of the people:
There
is none thirsty among them.
© Legal Personal Representatives
of Christopher Okigbo, Labyrinths 1971