THE POET David Numshi Musa

DORA AKUNYILI

2010-02-20T09:52:00.000-08:00

I see that you are not the kind to flinch
Despite the blast of a lead chip through your scarf
A tyrant blow…still you pushed on, undeterred
This will pass without debating,
You are a woman with balls
And balls…countable men own in our land
Not so, surely you will be relieved
Of your ailsome task—re-branding
Re-brand me a thousand times…I remain the same
Till you remake my spirit.

‘Mommy! Mommy! Someone’s burning drugs on TV.’
‘Yes, that’s Dora doing a good job.’
‘Does she want more sick people?’
‘No! They are fake…they only add to sickness.’

I hold you in high esteem
For living principle through deed
That’s the heart of a patriot
Nigeria adds you on the list of them.

An excerpt from my poetry collection TENDRILS
David Numshi Musa © 2010
Author, SOLITUDE AND SERENITY

SHE WAS LIKE POETRY

2010-02-19T06:09:00.000-08:00

She was like a rich tapestry of lexicons
Wordily woven to convey its writer’s very thoughts
Words stretching into lines, lines making tracks of letters
Cradled in verses of imagery and metaphors
And every ingredient of poetry
Damask! The word that best described her fabric.
She was like rap music
When Negroes took charge of the mic
Spitting philosophies white folks failed to discern
Sometimes rhyming, sometimes freestyling
Sometimes fast, sometimes slow
Emptying their pained souls, showcasing their agonies.
She was like an antiquated note of a symphony
Whose comprehension was lost to history
That only a resurrected genius could interpret.
She was like…
A mysterious renaissance art piece
An equation of codified variables
Mystic writings of the Kabala only Jews understood
A calculus problem of undefined limits
The game of chess to kick start from stalemate.
It all changed the moment I met her

She was like poetry!
But then I pulled her close
And showered on her lyrics she wasn’t prepared to hear
Later sedating her full-mouth French style
The viper had struck, and the venom anesthetized the prey
Flat like a patient, at the mercies of God and the surgeon
Braced up with my paraphernalia, I set to start operating.
I put her in the altogether and decrypted her anatomy
Reordered her permutation and rearranged her combination
And with the skill of a bomb disenabler
I meticulously unthreaded each string of the tapestry
At last, the Da Vinci Code has lost its claim
She was like poetry!
Now unraveled she lies…simple as prose.

An excerpt from my poetry collection TENDRILS
David Numshi Musa ©2010
Author, Solitude and Serenity.

TESTOSTERONE

2010-02-19T05:33:00.000-08:00

A scented wave of light air, pleasant for anyone’s taste,
Hurried up my nostrils, caressing their eager buds,
And I could tell it came from the opposite sex.

An eight-shaped figure cat-walked the walk way
Banging her hips from side to side…No, from left to right.
Busts of butterflies from her radiant face
Lift the veil of unbelief off mine.
I’m cured.
Now I’m convinced there is purpose in creation.
This is my long awaited half…my missing rib.

Then I heard the symphony of sublime sounds.
An invisible orchestra bathed the air with infectious music
My heart resonated with their angelic tunes
Harps, flutes, pianos, violins, mandolins…
All kinds of stringed and wind instruments.
Only Cupid is seen, fluttering above her head…
He is not with the singers…Killer! His bow is aimed at me.
He strikes my heart, and I love the pain.

But what’s that sudden nudge beginning to form
With this ravishing sight?
I feel the heat of desire burning
Somewhere between my legs
And I like it…No, I hate it.
Like it…hate it…Damn, I’m a divided man. A man apart.
Who will rescue me from this body of sin?

Now calm down, ‘you’ polygamous brother of countless attractions.
I am determined to do it right.
I will go over and tell her my name, and ask of hers too.
Then we will go home and see my mother and father;
After that, we’ll see hers too.
I have found renewal—not just from this mere urge.

An exerpt from my poetry collection TENDRILS
David Numshi Musa © 2009
Author, Solitude and Serenity

THE NEW BIRTH

2010-02-19T05:28:00.000-08:00

Long ago,
At Calvary,
This filth-filled mortal embodiment
Of earth and slime
Found recompense—
A rejuvenation of the soul, transactioned
At the master’s feet—
Pardon for guilt; grace for sin; beauty for ashes…
Of a wherewithal so precious
And red,
The priceless fluid
Of divine atonement.

Before that gracious recall, it played
The proud host to gravely ills
Debauchery, avarice, fornication, sloth…
Adorned with lust and inflamed with infernal covetions
Till there on the cross,
At Calvary,
The old man was crucified with Christ.
And there he died.

A seed must first die
Before a new plant can grow.
Before the new man can grow,
The old man first must die;
Not that he’s sown, but he dies to donate allowance.

Then stepping out
From the pool
Of confessional immersion,
Forth emerged the new man,
Renewedly rebirthed—born again.

An excerpt from my poetry collection TENDRILS
David Numshi Musa © 2009

VICISSITUDE

2010-02-19T05:06:00.000-08:00

The voice in the storm was prophetic.
Just as it promised
To unveil shine after the rain,
So it kept its word.
And shine had brought rain,
Also fulfilling its promise.

Before night is day,
And after night comes day.
Each is each’s forerunner;
The hand of one
Is the promise of the other’s.

Once, parents were children
Next, children are parents
Procreation redraws the cycle:
Plants from seeds, seeds from plants.

And the little child wondered
Why people die.
Why you’ll one day die.
Why one day he won’t be remembered.

But so was the agreement. Now forgotten.
To embrace life is to accept death.
And after death is life.

Still he argued it wasn’t his choice.
Sadly, memory is precise in eternity,
When all variation will cease.

An excerpt from my poetry collection TENDRILS
David Numshi Musa © 2009

GONTO

2010-02-19T04:51:00.000-08:00

The portrait of your anguished face was drawn
By the untiring fingers…or, rather, your insistent voice of ambition
To see your people become free
Time, energy and sacrifice not for your self
Are the fuel used up
To give to this vision impetus
Now in the gallery of cherished memories
Alongside many others who believed in humanity’s cause
A masterpiece it hangs
Evergreen in our hearts.
Slapped and ridiculed…I heard you endured for the dream…
The struggle still continues
Though many without number have put off the shackles
Zaar now boasts of distinguished soldiers, seamen and aviants…
Of scholars, doctors, lawyers and many in the intelligentsia
And of noble notice, poets.
Oh, how I wish flesh lived way beyond breath
Then you’ll have the mortal chance to always see
Your dreams lived through Zaar offspring
And to receive the compliments scarcely few merit these days.
Still rest
O son of struggles
My pen salutes your courage
Freedom will come with tomorrow…
Zaar will see the hour of thorough liberation.

An excerpt from my poetry collection TENDRILS
David Numshi Musa © 2009
Author, Solitude and Serenity

HALF OF ME (purpose driven)

2010-02-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel
Like I am serving the world too little
Of my life’s drink
I imagine myself a floating iceberg
Revealing to sailors
Only my tip
While a mountain of me melts
Beneath

Sometimes I think
Life is a cup I need to fill
It seems
A hungry world sits round my table
Craving a taste
Of my dish

Sometimes I feel
Sometimes I think
But all times I know

I know that
God does not play dice
I was born
A product of intent and grand design
To find, realize and fulfill
My destiny

When the passions burn
Within me
Eagerly desiring an outpour
I am like an angry bottled-up wine
About to blast
And rip off my bothering skin
Launching the cork seal rocket high

I am convinced
That the hour lies ahead
When I shall erupt
Like a fuming red-hot volcano
To run my fiery larva ravagingly
Over the plains of earth’s history
Treading my course
Till age wears me cold
And leave behind a rock
Of solid memory
For all man to study
And a new life to evolve

An excerpt from my book SOLITUDE AND SERENITY
David Numshi Musa © 2009

TAKE ME THERE

2010-02-19T03:47:00.000-08:00

I
Life has smiled on me, and I’ve smiled back.
Every good turn, they say, deserves another.
And I’ve always try’d,
At least, to return those favors that need’d reciprocation.

Someone once ask’d me,
‘Tell me your likes and dislikes.’ And I reply’d,
‘I like every thing that likes me
And I dislike every thing that dislikes me.’

I was stun’nd by my response.
It was not premeditated;
But it spoke my inner man.
Your inner man also agrees with me. Believe it or not. Still it agrees.

We are born to be loved.
And whatever doesn’t give us that,
We reply them back with cold hate or may be simple unlove.
Hate me, I hate you; love me, I love you. No love lost!

But sometimes it’s indifference:
We are neither for nor against the situation.
Yet this seeming indifference is not always what it seems.
Deep down, on the scales of conscience, it is shyly tilt’d.

II
Until last night,
I’d always believed life was unfair.
But at dawn this morning, I woke up
With the grim realization that it isn’t.

We always cry for not having
Either this or that,
Not really considering what we possess
Which those whom we think have it all don’t possess.

Look at what life does:
It calls you a philosopher and gives you the grief of deep thinking,
While it calls another carefree, insane or an imbecile
And allows them the benefit of sound laughter.

Somebody is endow’d with beauty
And it brings with it a handicap to the attainment of chastity,
The one who thinks he is ugly
Isn’t grateful for the “seldom” invitation to depravity.

No one really has it all.
You cannot have it all and still have it all!
You cannot lack the most and still lack it all!
Life, indeed, is fair.

Then I consider myself:
I am not rich and neither am I poor;
I am not tall, neither am I short;
I am not a genius, neither am I a dummy.

The ladies say I’m handsome, mold’d in the divine proportion.
But I lack the eminence of a Nephilim.
Many a fair lady have I covet’d, but they didn’t like me;
Many a fair lady has chased me, and I didn’t think them worthy.

I feel that life’s like that: you win some and you lose some.
One has to give up on this in order to own that.
If you don’t have the time for this,
Time will be made for that. It’s the general law of trade.

So I feel that to have it all is
A function of understanding opposite faces.
True insight lies in
The overall appreciation of opposing arguments.

You cannot really cherish happiness without knowing sadness;
You cannot relish glory without experiencing dirt;
You cannot appreciate love without undergoing rejection;
You cannot value health without the knowledge of ill health.

III
Now here I sit, thinking in these rhymless verses
Of a byzantine art called poetry,
Praying to be applaud’d
By those who bless your lines as worthy of ovation.

But whatever the appreciation might speak about me,
Whether they shout “more!”, “silence!”, or “leave the stage!”
Whether it’s love, indifference or hate,
I shall repay no one in their own coins. And it’s a promise.

And what recognition do I really dream of
Since the appreciation of poetry seems the reserve of a select few?
Poetry is to the arts
What chess is to the sports. Quite intricate. Quite byzantine.

Still I write,
Praying that the forces of cosmos will conspire in my favor;
To fight to take me there
Either by the effortless skills of Tai chi or the laborious Tae kwon do.

And I will keep on praying
Till my shout navigates our spherical domiciliary.
Now I heave this unrhythmic cry:
Somebody, please take me there!

An excerpt from my poetry collection TENDRILS.
David Numshi Musa © 2009