Ayuba Big, Where Are You? & Other Poems by: Kehinde Akano

February 27, 2024 TWF Editor 1 Comments

Ayuba Big, where are you? 

(For KWASU Deputy Bursar whose departure keeps hurting)

Big is the echo of your death
Mighty man of accountability
Integrity was your armour
Diligence, your sword

Why would you sneak away in triumph
As bees moved away from popo
And buffalo migrated from the hinterland 

Like the sea waves which tremble before the shore
Few days to your shadowy evasion
Your ebullient frame was hovering in the bursary’s corridor
Flowery were the vouchers welcoming you to the office
As you counter-checked balance sheets 

Little did we know you would saunter into your paradise so soon
At your rear were Death waves in fluffy velvets blown by wailers’ tears
Throng of sympathisers in dark apparitions trailing your ghost
A multitude of your fellows in moody celebration of your sudden departure

Weary our souls, our souls weary in painful memory of the gargantuan loss
Your death sweeping off our feet as a hurricane does to buildings
Our owls becoming dumb in the face of your hasty announcement

Ayuba Big, 
Benevolence was your birth
Like princes and prophets of hallowed days
Infectious was your service to mankind
A rare gem in the administration of KWASU
A worthy descendant of Alamoyo 


Tandi Tandi
, your dance steps

Now that we have condemned Tandi
For playing the devil’s advocate
With his wobbling dance steps on the stage
Indeed it was an eyesore to behold
As if I was seeing mucus running down a toddler’s nostrils
Such nauseating steps as offensive as the ill-disposed excreta 
Scattered by the playful toes of the hen

Tandi Tandi has volunteered to take up the dance
You would think a leprous horse was displaying

With the dog squatting
We decided to go for a monkey
Between monkey and dog 
Who squats most?

Tandi we say does not know how to dance

*Tandi---- moron


Chorus of Hope

Let’s hear each other 
Fellow caravan in the wilderness of hope
As we wander from furrow to furrow
In desultory chase of shadowy rendezvous
Or is ours a seasonless toil?

As we trudge on in the labyrinth of the famished 
Like scavengers of the modern time
Our pace is neither slow nor fast
Our step-in wobbling crisscrosses 

Lend me your ears
Let my chant minister to your restless legs
My cerebral ballads, an ointment for your swollen ankles
When windy words bear my mission to the weary and the thirsty

I sing to their hearing
Power mongers and warehouse centurions
Who turn deaf ears to the bloating of their captives
With tuneful parables and proverbial cacophonies 
My healing song for their swollen conscience

*Kehinde Reuben Akano, is a Professor with the English Department of the Kwara State University, Malete. He is an award-winning poet.

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