Nigerian Student Poetry: "I dream of a mad man" by Adedayo Adeyemi Agarau

This mad man was here when my grandmother sketched the scar of witches upon my forehead..

I dream of a black man

running around the streets of my illusions

in torn attires

weaved upon his head are

broken baskets and his feet are the wayfarer's.

I dream of him when I sleep

and I wake to see him buried in my eyeballs

I see him sing with the night and the owl

and the scars upon his forehead;

he makes me remember my grandmother.

 

I dream of a mad man

I see him run in circuits of circles, like a man – helter-skelter

seeking shelter in the cold corridors of a webbed

maze,

I see him move his mouth to mock me and my beliefs,

and my fate and my faith and my fortune.

this mad man knows my story

 

he was here when I was taught to drink blood

of brothers in a brothel with bushels of darkened

desires

 

he was here when I was taught to knot pain

in the heavy heart of onlookers

this mad man was here when my grandmother

sketched the scar of witches upon my forehead

 

this mad man is me trying to live again

in the hands of a white world where

rainbows and scents of rain still come as travellers

and the night perches on the shoulders of reality

and the moon stands atop our roofs without guilt or

blood

or bile or bizarre anger about sacrifices we didn't

make

 

this mad man is me starting a fire of lunatics

on these streets where our fingers and teeth

have called souls into graves beneath our feet

 

this mad man is the picture of my grandfather

walking through those junctions

with the wicked hands of his lovely wife

 

Adedayo Adeyemi Agarau is a student of Nutrition and Dietetics at the Federal Polytechnic Ede.

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