KAMARUDEEN MUSTAPHA

KAMARUDEEN MUSTAPHA

Our Journey

Our journey could not have been

This long

Our journey could not have been

This cumbersome

Had we always known the right way

To take

To arrive the bustling Samarkand

Had we always known where exactly

Our goldmines lie

At faraway Gold Coast

But in the journey of fortune

We are all but blind like bat

That doesn't even know

Whether it is a mammal or a bird

And we crew, blind and drunk

You can still recall all the ports

At which we anchored out boats of chance

Strange ports where our presence

Was a wasted boon

We should wonder

Why we clambered the Everest

While our fortune lies cozy in South Sea

What tactics did we hope to learn

At Antarctica

While our fortunes were being held in trust

By the sun scorched Berbers?

But since the blind always have

To grope

Since the ducklings always have

To waddle

Our games of life are like lottery

We grasp at phantoms and numbers

Etched in powder

And so, the journey of forty days

Takes these precious forty years

And many a trial and embattlement

Remember

We dug some mines for miles

But they are depositories of dross

We dyked some rivers for decades

But they contained only crabs

And clams

And never fish

And now our youth is gone

Before we arrive the prime of noon

We hit the gold only when

The milestones are greying

And the sun has become bearded

Like old Noah

Uncertainty

We swing

Hung to zero base

Like pendulums

The earth looks so faraway

From us

Like an abyss of no end

We dare not let go

For the earth below us

May be no earth

From our unseeing heights

But ravaging seas

May be no seas

But vengeful quagmire

May be no quagmire

But jagged mountain tops

May be no jagged mountain tops

But hungry bonfires

We don't know

So, we don't let go

Even the zero base

We continue the swaying

To the harsh beats

Of the jazz of our existence

Till.......

A Prince Of Lagos

He kneels in Kuala Lumpur

Listless in London and Lisbon

Hides away in Mediterranean coasts

Hustles for what's not in Jakarta

He gasps for dear life in Johannesburg

And wears the slave shackles in Libya

A Prince of Lagos

Lower now than a beggar's mule

He puts his palms down

This willing Animal of burden

He bares his back to carry

He has to eat, hasn't he?

So, ask not for his legendary pride

It's frittered away

Like his home's legendary wealth

And the veiled Ummi

And the red coated Madam

And the reeking pimp

And the puffed up profiteer

Step on this human ladder

En route their gains

Via his pains

He trails after the aroma

Of their burgher

Like a dog famished

Afraid a Trump doesn't dream

Of his outlandish identity again

In the darling streets of New York

He loves dear than his once darling God

KAMARUDEEN MUSTAPHA

KAMARUDEEN MUSTAPHA (Prince Dankeketa) is a Nigerian poet and short stories writer. He was born in 1965. He has published some children books, namely: Winners Never Quit, The Predestined King, My incorruptible Father (a play), Zinari, the golden boy, Poor Rachael was saved, I am a good child, The sun is shining bright, Wayon Bana, etc. His poems and short stories have been published in various online and offline magazines like Our Poetry Archives, Setu online magazine, Praxis online magazine, African writer.com, Kreative diadem, Ace world,  Atunis Galaktika etc. Likewise, his poems have been published in various international anthologies.