J.P Clark is white ink, you must have him in reflection before you see. A seasoned poet and writer transmuted through the African literary space, now lives in an undying global state.
Some of his poetic pieces here would soothe you just fine, if you dare to find out.
Enjoy.
Fulani Cattle
Contrition twines me like a snake
Each time I come upon the wake
Of your clan,
Undulating along in agony,
Your face of stool for mystery:
What secret hope or knowledge,
Locked in your hump away from man.
Imbues you with courage
So mute and fierce and wan
That, not demurring nor kicking,
You go to the house of slaughter?
Can it be in the forging
Of your gnarled and crooked horn
You’d experienced passions far stronger
Than storms which brim up the Niger?
Perhaps, the drover’s whip no more
On your balding mind and crest
Arouses shocks of ecstasy:
Or likely the drunken journey
From desert through grass and forest,
To the hungry towns by sea
Does call at least for rest-
But, will you not first reveal to me,
As true the long knife must prevail,
The patience of even your tail?
Song
I can look the sun in the face
But the friends that I have lost
I dare not look at any. Yet, I have held.
Them all in my arms, shared with them
The same bath and bed, often
Devouring the same dish, drunk as soon
On tea as on wine, at that time
When but to think of an ill, made
By God or man, was to find
The cure prophet and physician
Did not have. Yet, to look
At them now I dare not,
Though I can look the sun in the face.
The Casualties
The casualties are not only those who are dead.
They are well out of it.
The casualties are not only those who are dead.
Though they await burial by installment.
The casualties are not only those who are lost
Persons or property, hard as it is
To grope for a touch that some
May not know is not there.
The casualties are not only those led away by night.
The cell is a cruel place, sometimes a haven.
No where as absolute as the grave.
The casualties are not only those who started
A fire and now cannot put out. Thousands
Are are burning that have no say in the matter.
The casualties are not only those who are escaping.
The shattered shall become prisoners in
A fortress of falling walls
The casualties are many, and a good member as well
Outside the scenes of ravage and wreck;
They are the emissaries of rift,
So smug in smoke-rooms they haunt abroad,
They do not see the funeral piles
At home eating up the forests.
They are wandering minstrels who, beating on
The drums of the human heart, draw the world
Into a dance with rites it does not know.
The drums overwhelm the guns…
Caught in the clash of counter claims and charges
When not in the niche others left,
We fall.
All casualties of the war.
Because we cannot hear each other speak.
Because eyes have ceased the face from the crowd.
Because whether we know or
Do not the extent of wrongs on all sides,
We are characters now other than before
The war began, the stay-at-home unsettled
By taxes and rumours, the looters for office
And wares, fearful everyday the owners may return.
We are all casualties,
All sagging as are
The cases celebrated for kwashiorkor.
The unforseen camp-follower of not just our war.
CHILD
River bird, river bird.
Sitting all day long
On hook over grass,
River bird, river bird.
Sing to me a song
Of all that pass
And say,
Will mother come back today?
BIRD
You cannot know
And should not bother;
Tide and market come and go
And so shall your mother.
Night Rain
What time of night it is
I do not know
Except that like some fish
Doped out of the deep
I have bobbed up belly wise
From stream of sleep
And no cock crow
It is drumming hard here
And I suppose everywhere
Droning with insistent ardor upon
Our roof thatch and shed
And through sheaves slit open
To lightning and rafters
I cannot quite make out over head
Great water drops are dribbling
Falling like orange and mango
Fruits showered forth in the wind
Or perhaps I should say so
Much like beads I could in prayer tell
Then on string as they break
In wooden bowls and earthenware
Mother is busy now deploying
About our room let an floor
Although, it is so bad
I know her practiced step as
She moves her bins, bags and vats
Out of the run of water
That like ants filling out of the wood
Will scatter and gain possession
Of the floor. Do no tremble then
But, turn brothers, turn upon your side
Of your loosening mats
To where the others lie.
We have drunk tonight of a spell
Deeper than the owl’s or bat’s
That wet of wings may not fly
Bedraggled up on the iroko, they stand
Emptied of hearts, and
Therefore will not, stir, no, not
Even at dawn for then
They must scurry in to hide.
So let us roll over our back
And again roll to the beat
Of drumming all over the land
And under its ample soothing hand
Joined to that of the sea
We will settle to sleep of the innocent and free.
