(For Su’eddie Vershima Agema)

Let me unwrap the opening glee of tales
that sleep inside my mouth
& probably start not to write a poem
but write whatever the god in a poet can fashion to fit into words,

captured in transition of graces to write.
How can you define the poet beyond the madness of his metaphors? Sometimes these metaphors are muse captured through the eyes of a lover. Other times, they are ideas captured through anger, like the one that birth the flames that built Pan Africanism to spring to feet and sing to cleanse our soul. Other times metaphors sprout for worthy names. The ancestors understood this so they formed mouths to names, so panegyric exists.
The Bottom of Today’s Tale is the illness that accompanies the selection of metaphors. So, the bone that hooks the throat of the dance is how I will paint Su’eddie in the metaphors that are worthy.
Who doesn’t know the death that plagued my soul under the grip of Benue? Who doesn’t know that I have never loved Benue? Here is not the tale of Benue, but it is necessary to state that Su’eddie gave Benue State life in the eyes of a poet who has his soul fixed to the love of Lagos disease. Benue was an apology. But now, her soft lips can hold on to mine for the time that I still have to stay. Benue is becoming a lover.
Su’eddie
I will unroll mountains off the tracks of words
to fiddle strings of metaphors that will sing of you
but you see
the dawn is too soft to hold the bricks of what you have done
so I belt the songs back to their base and say in few words

Let us live more and keep the good work up

& may you find laughter and light. Happy Birthday