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From the murderous one’s fury he flees; the minstrel fears death by drowning hence he looks not back at the gorgon’s face to gather valuables and be transfixed into stone. The minstrel counts the blessings of a fugitive; the muse that subjects the caste to calamities also saves from the road littered with aborted hopes and makes the favorite one to defy odds to survive. The song though invaluable is no property that drowns—even if it goes down, it rises with life; the song survives unsanitary domes of starvation; it survives the neglect of smug federal bureaucrats. The minstrel takes his gruel scrambled from filth and seeks not the king’s table on a flooded floor; he wishes to arrive sane with memories of abuse, his head clean above the muck; nothing personal. The horizon once an insurmountable wall beckons with clouds that give way to sun and always stalking the minstrel a beautiful spirit, lips aflame— the wordless delight springs from pain; the companion thinks of labor, a fruit. At the taxi station A Bible-brandishing one suddenly appears from nowhere 273
once the car’s filled with passengers and about to leave to pray for the benighted passengers before the car takes off for its seven-hour dust-coated destination of discomfort. He rails against demons—not the potholed bush-covered roads; he rails against accidents—not drowsy or drunk illiterate drivers. He wants the road cleared by the blood of Christ—not workers; he absolves robbers from the road—not from unemployment. The pastor asks the travelers to close their eyes, which they do even as his remain wide open, and winces at the rebel minstrel & invokes Christ to cover the car that’s often not serviced with the miraculous blood of Jesus; he separates one into two. He expels all principalities that will lurk along the way that the overloaded and crowded car will speed past; he delivers every passenger into the safe hands of God even as the impatient driver readies bribes for the police. The holy one summons Christ from above to be the driver since the paid uniformed one will fall asleep from revelry & on and on until he concludes with “In the mighty name of Jesus” to which his congregation on wheels chorus “Amen!” “The Lord blesses a cheerful giver,” he proclaims as he pulls off his sleeves all the beggar skills he certainly thrives on and his eyes roving from one traveler to another for his service, many tuck naira notes into his outstretched right palm & cheered by the generosity beams like dawn with smiles and proclaims “Go well!” as the driver pulls out the station with passengers who want to get to their destination by whatever means other than the transport fare they had paid. 274
Page 1 and 2: Poems by Atukwei Okai University of
Page 3 and 4: at twilight into the thundering cre
Page 5 and 6: I HOOT AT HUNGER I hoot too at the
Page 7 and 8: all the sunflowers and beaugainvill
Page 9 and 10: Night Journey The South African sky
Page 11 and 12: I wonder how many eyewitnesses witn
Page 13 and 14: Ghosts roam the pages Of the Counte
Page 15: Poems by Tanure Ojaide University o
Page 19 and 20: 1 ·Mungo Park, Scotsman, claimed t
Page 21 and 22: SAMBO’S ELEGY: NO RHYME OR REASON

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