FIELD OF GOLD (A poem)

FIELD OF GOLD
Stretching across the horizon is a threshold of fortunes
Where tin gods scramble in audacity through mountain dunes.
Bereft of play rules reward inspire muse tunes.
Selfishness, man slaughter are the rules of the goons;

Acting as zombies, they are careless about the other mind.
They collect pristine artifacts even but from our baren wind.
Nowhere is safe in their quest for the booty goods.
You may think grave yards are sacred but not to our tin gods;

In the chaos of their mad rush masses live in pain,
Gnawing the peasant’s hearts, they focus on pure gain.
Knowing that life is complex albeit so purely plain
I watch them in awe marveling at their plan: so vain;

Welcome to ebony land; the age old field of gold:
A place for servant- kings, coquette-queens, and audacious bold.
A place of weakened, servile masses left homeless and cold
A place where dreamers in their prime are cruelly, peanuts sold;

Welcome to the motherland of native and ancient civilizations,
Welcome to the raw sweat that enhanced modernizations,
Welcome to the land of the living, the dead and the unborn.
Welcome to the home of hopeless, conga and trombone;

Day in and day out we celebrate our fate shedding prayerful tears:
Praying that one day a hero would wipe off these tears;
But when that day comes, we shall all take up our gears;
And make this gold-field awash with assorted pricy bears;
When will that day come? As I tremble in caring fears.


Ali Baba Yakubu
18th March 2009

My Mummy's Palm (A poem)

MY MUMMY’S PALM
She was an enigma in my innocent mind,
But now a princess in my adult sublime wind,
She made me stand up-front and never behind,
HE made her so hard and yet so very kind.

I pray the love she gave me was never so lost.
I lay indoors so rich, turbo charged at no single cost.
No amount can pay up her priceless feelings,
For even in death, her memory ignites my wings.

Her palm was my whip, my balm and my spring.
In the coldness of night she circled me in her ring;
Praying I should wake up warm and ready to sing,
My legs might barely touch the ground, but then I was her king.

My mummy’s palms had circles deliberately not made.
When cuddling leaves to be dished, forth comes bleeding red;
With a smiling face and a grin she used to suck the redline away.
Every day in her time sacrifice was her way.

I shed bountiful tears; neither of sadness nor regret;
But tears of gratitude to Almighty for a pillar so great.
This I feel, though we are destined: poles apart.
But I know someday we shall be one and never to part.

In the kingdom of God memories do stand still.
But I will recall to our Lord how she molded my will into a steel.
And today even though heavenly apart, I stand on glory hill;
Basking in her prayers and due diligence to her age old will.

I smile every day I replay my mummy’s palm;
For when I stumble and fall and set redlines afloat,
She call no ambulance or any emergency boat,
But set out to work to heal my pain through her motherly balm.
Thank you mummy;
My life is sunny.

Ali Baba Yakubu, 18th March 2009