Poems
30.) Time twisting thoughts.
“If I could turn back
The hands of time,”
So says man
When I wish he knew
That I waited
For his travails to corrode
On iron of impatience.
“The time is so slow,”
So says man
When I wish he knew
That I waited
To align with his predestination
“Time is not on my side,”
So says man
When I wish he knew
That I waited
For his understanding
To fit into life’s puzzle.
“Time is not enough,”
So says man
When I wish he knew
His strongwill
Was not enough
“I still have time,”
So says man
When I wish he knew
That I would be gone
In no time
And leave him with no time.
“How time flies,”
So says man
When I wish he knew
I move when he moves
But don’t stop ticking
When he stops moving.
Posterity is my defense counsel
For this suit which
Defames my character.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
28/02/2007
29.) Reincarnation of intelligence.
I heard bitter cry
Of ‘reading culture’
Succeeded by silence
Then another wailing
From mockers
And the bereaved.
Behold with tears
Maggots of ignorance
Jeering with energy
At virtues of Wisdom,
Spouse of intelligence.
Donation of scornful look
To kill morale
Of understandin
Was amazingly generous.
Hear my cry,
Consult powers,
And cast vote
For reincarnation
Of ‘Reading Culture’
That lineage of intelligence
May live
Beyond lineage og ignorance
In memory of advocates of intelligence.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
14/01/2007
28.) Faith and Praise.
There’s always a time
When I feel like talking
Especially about your love
But the burden in my heart
Impedes the flow of expression.
It’s difficult to say
But you know the unspoken
Don’t do this and that.
I’ve done it all
I’m smelly, disobedient and
Without restraints
Arrogant about shadows and
Lacking in substance
Yet in my filth
Did I conceive thought of praise
Passionately breaking conventions
For unconventional praise.
Righteousness without praise
Shows forth kingdom products
While praise without righteousness
May show kingdom shakers
I detest my filth
To declare your praise.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
21/12/2006
27.) True Man.
He’s gone through
Corridors of power
Like receiving bait
Keeping head low
With voice soft
Wildly differing from convention
Then returning with
Corpse of pride.
Breaking mediocrity
Upholding neglected
Pathway for explosion.
He is true man
For sparing humility
To return with
Corpse of pride.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
30/11/2006
26.) Voice of death.
While speaking
He is never heard
Because he would be
Like wind moving,
Never to be seen
But only felt.
He speaks through
His victims
With undertone of unparallel passion
About that future
Which becomes illusion
But that passion
After chain of seconds
Death caution.
Sun sets at dawn
Locking behind
Gates of earth,
Molecules eyeing date
When they would be “late…”
We hear not voice of death
Not even its echo
But feel its vibrations.
He has made a bulb
Out of our lives
Which is unappreciated
While illuminating
But appreciated
When our strength of illumination
Is burn out
By voice of death.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
27/10/05
25.) What do we see.
Up they went with no eyes
But saw who they were.
Never for once stopped
And were moving steadily
Though in pains of neglect
But with joy for future
Perceived in eyes of the mind
Like one from them said:
“No wisdom abides in possessing eyes
When the eyes just keep you moving”
Reaching into their hearts,
You could think they say
“We do not see
Just as you think
But we truly see.
We see through your words
And the truest thing about man
Are his words.
That’s all we need.”
We often look
But what do we see?
Fola Daniel Adelesi
27/ 05/ 2005
Dedication: The blind.
24.) Beyond imagination.
It’s more than a mystery:
Black dominated the whole
Place but this time, not for war.
It’s all in memory of a person whose
Affection compels mourning.
One whose integrity we can vouch for.
A life we cannot appreciate in the whole
Of an encyclopaedia. The one whose place in
Our hearts competes with the magnitude
Of ocean. If only he had opened the
Door meticulously, he would have seen
The stupid, rude, intransigent…
‘Being’ called Mr. Death.
He has no atom of sense left in him to
Have been to stupid to leave behind
Those who are tired of life. I have now
Learnt that death is after only a life with
Dreams, a life with focus, and a consistent
Goal. It does not go after a goalless life,
Because its going to be useless in the end.
Something to ponder on: Death is a fool and
He goes after everyone. Do what is worth
Writing about or write what is worth reading
Before he comes knocking at your door.
What will people say after you?
Fola Danie Adelesi
February 2004.
(In memory of St. Mabol Idowu,
Lecturer in Philosophy Department,
Olabisi Onabanjo University who died
In a ghastly motor accident.)
23.) Wall truly betray.
It is a world
Where there are no suspects
But in our hearts
We know too well
That walls truly betray.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
01/06/2005
22.) The executive days.
Me thinks, me writes
Me builds a dream
When thou jumpest
Like “hum! Hum!” in the forest
With slings in thy claws.
O ye sleepers! Oooooo…
Mmmmmmm… like beasts
Scare away prey
And again mooooo…
Like unseen ghosts
Weakling fears
Or like sight-forbidden ‘oro.’
Me takes my dream to kofeso.’
Le professeur, le chef de l’universite
‘Wondalafu!’ le professeur exclaimed.
He sees my heart and
Hath, unto me, committed his hand.
I’m become a name
Then me remembers
“The gift of a man
Maketh room for him.”
But before the room,
Had I not been in beautiful days
When nature bestowed its love on me
Via liquid arrows?
Thou knowest not
Days of intimacy with garium sulphate
Days when my leggedis benz
Never ran out of fuel.
After long walk…
Sorry! Long drive,
Me thought my legs…
Oh! Wheels, were crumbling
But the journey, go, I must.
Though journey has just begun
But me already takes bold step
That others may follow
So we arrive together
If at all we shall
For with us it will not end
We only set the pace.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
31/05/2005
21.) A friend of his foe
Good evening. Listen to the news.
First the high lights.
Black dies in London: Corpse flown home
Blacks protest domination.
Father goes to court; seeks justice on slain son.
Now the news in half…
What a ridicule!
We left the fallows
Because of its sorrows
To collect with the right hand
And ignorantly give multiples by the left hand.
When the rain arrived
The dust rejoiced
“knot” knowing it had come for its place.
The land is plaqued
And we seek medication,
We fled from our mess
And in the end bringing more mess
For in time we fled from our mess
The mess found its roots.
For the sake of “come-on-cence”
That is far below demand,
We would have known
That our plaque is that
We do not know but think we know
Or know not that we kow.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
2004
20.) Oppressors
They are defenders
And by giving peaceful agony
They then become offenders.
Creatures who find solace in people’s agony
While pretending to be defenders
But are really furnishing agony.
Men who have gone astray
Also allowing the balls of their
Amorphous rods to go astray
As they spill blood from their
Own hearts when peacefully oppressing.
It is interestingly infuriating to know
They are better at educating
Inquisitive cripples on better ways
Of collecting alms.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
2003
19.) Christmas morning – Fola Daniel Adelesi
On Christmas morning
Came a fat stucky hen
Knocking at my door.
He introduced himself
As the sacrificial lamb,
Begging to take refuge
In my alimentary canal
Lest he be imprisoned
As a prisoner of war
By 32-man battalion
And have his fate
Determined by their anus.
My alimentary canal
Is a strong tower
For he has since found refuge
In its cavity.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
01/07/2005
18.) Squander no hope – Fola Daniel Adelesi.
Refrain your hope
From men in your offer
Who themselves are
Hopelessness personified
Squander not opportunities
On a man who seeks none
For both would have
Been offered food
But delayed eating
Thinking you should,
Be kind enough,
Out food in their mouth
Not their table.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
06/09/2006.
17.) Hope Beckons – Fola Daniel Adelesi.
Like never before
The springs will flow.
Fruitfulness will be our true colour.
Men of double character
Will be strange in our eyes.
Anomalies will cease
In our plethora of expectations.
Traffic would be beauty to behold.
Hunger would be, but for
Men without mouth.
Hope beckons on Nigeria
For days too beautiful
For the word, ‘beauty,’ to describe
Our streets would be too real
For the streets you know now
And the streets to come.
It’s a new Nigeria
That will explain the
Beauty of Heavens,
Not even to the fullest.
No news will go on air
Without the nameNigeria.
Heroes will spring up
Like flowers in autumn.
Loyalty of a dog
Would be found in men.
Serving spirit of camels
Will posses men.
Now it’s a baby eagle
But in maturity
Its lamentations now
Would be confined
To history books
Intimidating paraphernalia in
Government will vanish
Elevator will open
For churches that
Don’t preach for money
Hatred would be scarce
Love would become culture
Password for our treasury
Will paint begging as crime
We shall lend to nations
As our scriptural promise
As good folks comment
“our background will not
Permanently put our back
To the ground.”
Crops will yield
Beyond plans
You would be a Judas
Not to uphold our flag.
Green White Green will wave
Upon every home
With strength of horses
Men will fight for this nation
Then will labours
Of heroes past
Come to fruition
‘cos God of creation
Navigates our noble cause.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
07/10/2006
16.) Lovely enemies – Fola Daniel Adelesi.
Two fellows do good
To human beings.
One knowing he does good,
One thinking he does evil.
Our experience of joy
Makes life worth living
To this we owe,
Essentially, great thanks
To the good-doer.
Trials and failures
Packaged for us
Presented by adversaries
Contribute to our victory
To which, essentially,
We owe immeasurable thanks
To the evil doer.
Sailors of reputation
Ate the calm and storm
Excellent pilots
Ate lightening and storm
Man must need,
To live on after death,
Be pampered and punched by
Enemies and loved ones.
Fola Daniel Adelesi.
15/06/2006
15.) Battle of a night – Fola Daniel Adelesi.
My roving eyes
In admiration
Of palatial condominium
Caught wandering bimbo
In the annual assemblage
And in the expected return
From a normal flesh
My mortal was subject
To chemical electrocution.
In struggle for survival
My eyes solicited formatting
And my mind, configuration.
The bimbo’s propellant, Our Disc Jockey,
Unrelentlessly powered their spirits
And I saw trousers and trousers,
Trousers and gowns,
Trousers and skirts
Go wild like fire works.
It was a moment of conscious madness
But of satisfaction to them.
Satisfied by being mad
The two fleshy loaves
Flaunted indiscriminately
Meant good for the eyes
But it was the plucker of those eyes
Fola Daniel Adelesi
16/12/2005
14.) Night time – Fola Daniel Adelesi.
When sun goes to bed
And stars keep vigil
Then will I rise,
Like custom of great men,
To sit at the feet of wisdom
Divorcing my bed.
So when sun rises,
Will it not concentrate on me
And its rays reveal
That my eyes
Are not given to deep sleep?
Then will kings beckon
That I may seat with them.
When sleepers awake
They will trouble their eyes
As if wiping dirty windscreen
For they would imagine
They were dreaming
Because while they slept
I burnt candles
And when they awoke
Their paths were not bright
So I became their lamp.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
29/11/2005
13.) Dollars on the run – Fola Daniel Adelesi.
Like without it
We would never live
So we now live,
Crowning it king of our lives
Trading integrity for it
And acting before thinking.
Money spends human beings
It talks and we work,
But one day
When the ignoble
Went berserk
Making glasses become carpet
Brains made policies
Implemented by our feet.
Our lives’ value
Came into place
While dollars was running.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
17/08/05
12.) Sekere – Fola Daniel Adelesi
Great gourd
Clothed with beeds
Never magnanimous
In flaunting its bead-cloth
Skifully knitted
By its designer.
Little did it appear
‘twas a barricade
From what you tossed in
Through your thin neck
To your bank-like body.
You rolled and rolled
While we yelled and danced,
Then you became a man
Still with your qualities
Making men
Admire your beed-clothes
Without any eye
Looking what you tossed in.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
16/07/’05
11.) Homeless – Fola Daniel Adelesi
At dusk of sallah,
Like voice of many groaning dogs,
The storm started knocking
As if t’was couple’s sallah time.
It’s intrusion of
Merriment of the people
And agony of the rams
Was not frowned at.
It was joy to the farmer
The rain is come
Let every glutton rejoice.
It was joy to the farmer
And pain of the others
Because their rooftops
Accompanied the storm
As it exited
And rain came in
On a courtesy call
Then in same night
As some mouths crush bones
Others were rendered homeless.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
12/01/2006
10.) Prophecy of the kids.
In circle of wild excitement
Made by their tiny hands
Tightly holding unto another
They leaped in response
To the order of
The acting commandant
Who chants,
‘Who stole the meat
From the cooking pot?’
Voluntarily, one of the chaps responds,
‘Number three stole the meat
From the cooking pot.’
And in protest to accusation,
Number three answers,
‘Oh, me?’ ‘Yes, you!’
The others answer.
It couldn’t be,’ he protests
And shifts his accusation
With each new suspect protesting.
Real fun it was
To those chaps
But all, under ex-ray,
Is a satire about
Our leandars
Or our politika mentor.
What an avalanche of wisdom
Resides in the nonsense
That makes merry
Heart of the innocent prophets?
Fola Daniel Adelesi
26/12/2005
9.) Fathers of exile – Fola Daniel Adelesi
Always busy in bed
For in such is their delight
No file is unattended to
So long it came from ‘skirts.’
Like a wild dog
Protecting a prey
From cassanovaric predators
Of their own feathers
So they Shepard their flock
Not knowing the clock
Would become a witnessing rock
To what the pelvis under their block
Was going to unlock.
They needn’t await
Reward of their labour
‘cos tummies
Had begun testimonies.
Horses whose strength
Are motivated and activated
By walking skirts
Have left their ‘wages.’
In days when chaps
Needed to be loved,
Fathers were on exile
But genes were not exiled.
These heroes
Birthed by heroes
Birthed more heroic heroes
But all time you have
Fathers on exile.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
28/10/2005
8.) The heart in the earth – Fola Daniel Adelesi
The heart in the earth
Is so hostile a heart
It is the heart
That spares not even the rat.
What you hear from the heart
Is not what you get from the heart.
Like shepardless cows so are we on earth.
The heart in the earth
Is so callous a heart
They deceive the heart
With gifts from the wicked heart
And destruction comes closer the heart
Bell of painful pleasure rings in the heart.
The heart in the earth
Is our friendly foe to heart.
Their plans from the heart
Sweep our legs off the earth.
We know not of villainy on earth
For we thought we play on earth
The heart in the earth
Threatens threatens like phantom on earth
When we giggle on earth
To show appreciation from heart,
The sun above the earth
Alone understands our heart.
The heart in the earth
Sees no good thinking in the heart
They do not want the heart
To advance or progress on earth.
They will not unharm the heart.
Sand of wickedness grows in their heart
The most cherished treasure in their heart
Is the diabolic plan on earth.
They giggle and take pleasure in heart
Because others lose and mourn on earth.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
2002
7.) She roamed the streets – Fola Daniel Adelesi
She roamed the streets
As postmaster would,
But only delivering mails
In between the pairs of
Trous…
These confidential mails
Were not criminal
But everyone read openly
‘cos her tummy was her bag
Too many mails undelivered
And her tummy growing bigger
She said to herself,
“I deliver confidential mails
But my tummy was the traitor.”
Fola Daniel Adelesi
15/06/2005
6.) On the wheels of death – Fola Daniel Adelesi
They ate and drank
In clay of love
With straight minds
But boundless showers.
Stones had not been strong enough
As they had seen their hearts
Call unto each other.
Sand on beach was a little less
Than why they
Had to be friends
But when the clay broke,
She was to stay
And it was for love
He rode
One the wheels of death.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
11/06/2005
5.) Nigeria – Fola Daniel Adelesi
Oh Nigeria a land of mystery
Mystery! For that which we do we oppose.
Mystery! For that which we love we criticize
Mystery! For we pretend to be what we are not.
Mystery! For hypocrisy is the order of the day.
Our leaders hate corruption, but aid corruption.
Are they not the chichidodos, that hate
Excreter but feed on maggots?
We see that the hands of the country’s brains
Are busy. But doing what?
Invisible works!
The country is stagnantly progressing
And successfully failing
For we have too wise idealists
Building the nation builders to be tribalistic;
To feel inferior to the whites;
To preach good and aid bad;
And to believe that money does everything.
If I were a khaki man with bamboo
That vomits fire, death for them is sure
As the arrival of the daylight.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
2003
4.) “Stoop-in-dity”. – Fola Daniel Adelesi
It’s not ability
Or agility
Forget humility
Or gentility.
Disregard egocentricity
And festivity.
Keep ethnicity
And popularity
In your vicinity.
It’s not the velocity
Of your capacity
In eschewing mediocrity.
You are like electricity
And you preach stability
Or accountability
And creativity
Including compatibility
Check your atrocity
In this community
Against deity
And your sincerity
For God’s aaceptability.
The falsity
In your mentality
Advocates poverty
And you call it morality.
You are thinking conformity
And you appear a nonentity
But to you it’s personality.
What a “stoop-in-dity?”
Fola Daniel Adelesi
2004
3.) Resurrection of the frustrated man
A man by appearance
But not by responsibility
He advocated perseverance
But his opinion lost credibility.
Though in optimism school
He was taught by hostility.
He slept in beds of sorrow
And had his fellow burn his marrow.
He knew the tailor by name
But friendship would not extend to business.
The tailor only dreamt that he would
Wake up and see his tattered clothes.
The tailor’s dream came to pass.
He sewed a piece for his corpse!
He was the happiest man in the world.
He was the lord of the house in fantasy island.
But his fantasy island collapsed
Each time his eyes were opened
He had flown in planes of misfortunes
And he rode on horses decorated with thorns
From cradle to grave, his creditor was frustration
“We have no money to bury him,” his family said.
“Aaaah!” He shouted from where he was lying dead
“Why not bury me with what I did not enjoy?”
In horror and fear, a woman spoke.
“Mr. Frustration, your creditor, is here
To give more credit. Die as you were dead.”
“I am dead,” he replied and like a log of wood,
Precious but useless, he was lowered on bamboo
To be covered by the earth.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
9th Aug. 2004
3.) No cause for suicide – Fola Daniel Adelesi
Though the full moon tarries
The sun sets at dawn
Bringing hope of better tomorrow
The worse the situation,
The happier you find me.
Tomorrow shall come
When tremendous problems
Become stories to be told
To chaps who aspire to be
As great as I.
Frustrated, the melody
And rendition of
Church songs shall be
My companion. Afflicted,
I shall not retaliate, lest there be
Two bad men. Oppressed,
I shall be calm because the road
To greatness is roughest of all
Roads and say to myself;
Tough times never last,
Tough people do.
A resolution
For revolution
Shall be the solution
To my confusion.
Solution to my frustration
Will not be suicide
That will cut short
A generation of achievers
And abridge the history
Of a nation
When starving, I smell
The aroma from my neighbour’s kitchen.
I say to myself that I shall one
Day taste the stuff that afflicts my nose
By that aroma, and there shall be
No cause for suicide.
Fola Daniel Adelesi
2004
2.) Our institution – Fola Daniel Adelesi
Our institution
Needs a resolution
Every corner of our institution
Already understands love constitution
Our girls have gone into prostitution
If you don’t grab what they mention
The next line of action
If first class seduction.
Students no longer have articulation
The picture of extortion
In stakeholders’ classification
Has gone to front position.
The exacerbation
Of the situation
Has brought degradation
On the name of the institution
No facilities for communication
When we know that information
Is no deformation,
But orientation
That triggers aspiration
For elevation.
The order of composition
In every association
That comes into position
In the name of liberation
Has become world-class corruption.
I have boiled in indignation
And there is no resignation
In combating the anomaly of the situation
Fola Daniel Adelesi
2004
1.) Why me? – Fola Daniel Adelesi
Sometimes you try,
Sometimes you cry.
You get into a mess
And solution is another mess.
You want a way
All you get is nay!
In place of inspiration
You get discrimination.
Then you ask, “why me?”
It’s you ‘cos you are a gold digger.
Gold diggers dig deep
Don’t stop
Until the world stops
To see who is coming … you!
Fola Daniel Adelesi