Goldrush Book Club

I woke up this morning with no difficulty With ease I inhaled and exhaled for free. I’m strong and healthy, I didn’t have to do anything to be where I am Lord open my eyes to see all these things you are doing for me Because I don’t want to be another ingrate In your eyes. A grateful heart is hard to find and keep Lord uphold me with your hands   and never let me go into the pit of complaining. Open my eyes to see the victories you have given me Because I don’t want to be another ingrate.

Coming and going these several seasons Do stay out on the baobab tree Follow where you please your kindred spirits If indoors is not enough for you. True, it leaks through the thatch When floods brim the banks, And the bats and the owls Often tear in at night through the eaves, And at harmattan, the bamboo walls Are ready tinder for the fire That dries the fresh fish up on the rack. Still, it’s been the healthy stock To several fingers, to many more will be Who reach to the sun. No longer then bestride the threshold But step in and stay For good. We know the knife scars Serrating down your back and front Like beak of the sword- fish, And both your ears, notched As a bondsman of this house, Are all relics of your first comings. Then step in, step in and stay For her body is tired, Tired, her milk going sour Where many more mouths gladden the heart.

Freetown, when God made thee, He made thy soil alone Then threw the rich remainder in the sea. Small inlets cradled He, in jet black stone. Small bays of transient blue He lulled to sleep Within jet rocks, filled from the Atlantic deep. Then God let loose wee harbingers of song. He scattered palms profusely o’er the ground Then grew tall grasses, who in happy mirth Reached up to kiss each palm tree that they found. ‘This is my gem!’ God whispered, ‘this shall be To me a jewel in blue turquoise set.’ Thus spake the mouth of life’s eternity; There, tranquilly lies Freetown, even yet. Then God couched, lion –like, each mighty hill. Silent, they keep their watch o’er Freetown still Silent –

Rejoice and shout with laughter Throw all your burdens down, If God has been so gracious As to make you black or brown For you are a great nation, A people of great birth For where would spring the flowers If God took away the earth? Rejoice and shout with laughter Throw all your burdens down Yours is a glorious heritage If you are black, or brown.

My apparition rose from the fall of lead, Declared, 'I am a civilian.' It only served To aggravate your fright. For how could I Have risen, a being of this world, in that hour Of impartial death! And I thought also: nor is Your quarrel of this world. You stood still For both eternities, and oh I heard the lesson Of your traing sessions, cautioning - Scorch earth behind you, do not leave A dubious neutral to the rear. Reiteration Of my civilian quandary, burrowing earth From the lead festival of your more eager friends Worked the worse on your confusion, and when You brought the gun to bear on me, and death Twitched me gently in the eye, your plight And all of you came clear to me. I hope some day Intent upon my trade of living, to be checked In stride by your apparition in a trench, Signalling, I am a soldier. No hesitation then But I shall shoot you clean and fair   With meat and bread, a gourd of wine A bunch of breasts from either arm, and

Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze, Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes, Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins Of marooned mariners, captives Of Circe's sultry notes. The barman Dispenses igneous potions ? Somnabulist, the band plays on.   Cocktail mixer, silvery fish Dances for limpet clients. Applause is steeped in lassitude, Tangled in webs of lovers' whispers And artful eyelash of the androgynous. The hovering notes caress the night Mellowed deep indigo ?still they play. Departures linger. Absences do not Deplete the tavern. They hang over the haze As exhalations from receded shores. Soon, Night repossesses the silence, but till dawn The notes hold sway, smoky Epiphanies, possessive of the hours. This music's plaint forgives, redeems The deafness of the world. Night turns Homewards, sheathed in notes of solace, pleats The broken silence of the heart.