By Benson Eluma
Poet, I know you must play
your game with ease.
Words are a cunning species,
tell the philistine hordes.
You won’t sketch any river of silk
rippling the sun
unless you have sat on its bank
for five hours, caressed
to your very soul and being
by birdsong and breeze
while your girl caresses your body.
Only then would you linger
over your easel to draw.
Surely, you will return
on the morrow to sit with your girl
another five hours, comparing
the wonder of your hand
with the work of nature,
taking everything in,
hmm… hmmm… hmmmmmm…!
Experience is the aesthete’s
best friend, experience
of coffee, coitus, cadenzas, and
clothbound volumes.
Poet, play your game with ease.
I know you won’t visit Chibok
where the experience is keener
than a cutthroat razor—
but will you write about it?
___________
Benson writes from Ibadan.