by Ben Okri
till your life bleeds
you frozen in fear, or blistered in rage
singing on a vacant stage
you in poverty or in wealth
some vision draws us on
which we must heed
or not be born.
HAMLET
we’re always asking ourselves
why this young man is so intense.
there’s something about him
that’s more than what he seems.
the play ends and you have a sense
of something unfinished.
as if it were a step
in an obscure initiation.
how confined that world seems,
as if elsinore were an alchemical
vessel where all the heat
of those passions served only
to transform the inner temperature
of some subterranean event.
but he’s not what he is.
the world he’s enclosed in
is only part of a long journey.
part of an ongoing process.
do you know the next stage?
it might be written in a hundred years;
perhaps it’s been composed
already: a novel, a poem,
a painting whose meaning
always eludes us till
we approach the figure
at the threshold.
can’t escape the feeling
of the unfinished.
that death ends nothing. why?
nothing is diminished.
because another death
is referred to, not the death
of one person, with a name
and a history, but another death,
we must pass through
on the way to a mysterious
light. but how like a phase
in the great work it feels,
not calcination, with its black
earth and its skull,
but something further down
the liminal process,
like fermentation, where a deep
change has begun, the intellect
awoken, the soul coming out
of its coarse material shell,
to glimpse the infinite heavens
A LITTLE SONG
the sun’s smiling at me today
even when the snow’s here.
birds are full of wonder
at the changing celestial sphere
my heart’s warm with laughter
the roads are clear
girls are walking on frost
with the lights in their hair
the sky’s an undreamed-of palette
and branches are sifting the wind
all things are secretly dreaming
of passion and mysterious spring
February 1991
IN A TEMPLE IN SEOUL
is it penance or an act
in a long journey
to true enlightenment?
sacrifice or a rite
of purification,
symbolic rite,
spiritual discipline,
lesson or the koan
of a noviciate?
in the temple these
questions haunt me
as i contemplate
the woman who
polishes the wooden
floor till it shines
like the buddha’s light.
without a pause,
and with thoroughness,
she polishes and cleans
places that are already
polished and clean,
with her cloth mop.
whatever we tread on
she cleans.
her act is perpetual.
the purpose isn’t
merely to shine the floor,
nor merely to get rid
of dirt. her purpose seems
more mysterious,
as though she wants
to eliminate the minutest speck
of dust and dirt
from the calm presence
of the gold buddha.
the temple is a beautiful
riot of colours: greens,
yellows, and reds.
dragons loom with tongues
of fire from high places.
yet, for all that colour,
such calm.
the space there is vaster
than it seems
and peace adds dimensions
to a room, a study or temple.
we sit on prayer mats,
cross-legged, surrounded
by one thousand
buddhas. a small kama
for carrying women
in ancient times
rests in a blue corner.
the decorated drum
on a stand
resonates in silence.
all around us
the woman polishes
every inch of the floor.
works without emotion.
cleansing
the universe
of suffering
and sin.
CONVERGENCE
For Michael Aminian
language from the mouths.
screams from the earth.
all around the globe is burning.
deep inside we’re all connected.
world is bleeding,
soul is reeling,
there’s a global fever
and money is weeping
only the poor shed tears
above the earth.
sustenance is dwindling.
clouds glow with poisoned fumes.
we think we’re safe
but we’re breathing in death,
the death of dreams
and all that it means.
oil spews ruining farmlands.
innocent shores receive
the west’s toxic waste
palmtree forests
have become rivers of oil slick;
mountains of gold
have become craters of dead stones.
have you seen the mountain
wastes of tanzania where
they mine the earth
and fill it with dark fear?
have you gone deep
into the grim bowels
of mozambique
and been buried for less
than an apple’s price?
there’s a weird logic in the world.
the truly rich countries are poor
and the truly poor countries are rich.
where there should be
harvests of ripe laughter
there are just the shadows
of hungry children in the streets.
there’s a red dust
in the blue skies of guinea;
the bauxite pulled from its earth
like golden teeth
could sprinkle paradise
from the red soil.
but the earth is burned
and mango trees lean out
from open mines.
many lands with their shacks
and abundant trashheaps,
orange umbrellas in marketplaces
and gas combustion on the edge
of forests have an infernal doorway
into ever-vanishing paradise.
in marikana the spirits of apartheid
endure in crooked ventures.
dance with me along the timeline.
the silk road and the spice trade route
have thrown out red bridges
to little villages
with tents and shimmering deserts.
the real history of the future will be
the story of the transformation of the poor;
from kolkata to lagos,
from london to laos,
from nuremberg to timbuktu.
There’s a new language on the lips:
either justice or death,
either collaboration
or the fire of the gods
hurled by the unforgiving hunger
of the world’s broken children.
it’s time to change the nature of the game,
time to write on the face of the earth
the value and meaning of every name.
OBAMA
Sometimes the world is changed
When the right person appears.
But the right person
Is also the right time.
The time and the person
Have to work the secret
Alchemy together.
To change the world is more
Than just changing its laws.
Sometimes it’s just
Being a new possibility,
A portal through which new
Fire can enter this world
Of folly and error.
They change the world best who
Alter the way we think.
For our thoughts make our world.
Some think it’s our deeds;
But deeds are the visible
Children of thought.
The thought-changers are the game-
Changers, are the life-changers.
We think achievements are symbols.
But symbols aren’t symbols.
They are often what they
Are in themselves.
Obama is not a mere symbol.
Sometimes even a symbol is a sign
That we aren’t dreaming potently
Enough. A sign that the world is the home
Of possibility. A sign that our chains
Are unreal. That we’re freer than we
Know, that we’re more powerful than
We dare to think. If he’s a symbol,
Then it’s of some kind of liberation.
A symbol also that power in this world
Can’t do everything. Even Moses couldn’t
Set his people free. They had to
Wander in the wilderness. They too
Turned against their leaders
And away from their God
And had to overcome themselves
And their history to arrive
At the vision their prophets
Had long before.
Being a Black president
Is not a magic wand
That will make all
Black problems disappear.
Leaders alone cannot
Undo all the evils that
Structural evil makes
Natural in the life
Of a people. Not just leadership;
Structures must change.
Structures of thought
Structures of dreams
Structures of injustice
Structures that keep
A people imprisoned
To the stones and the dust
And the ash and the dirt,
The dry earth, the dead roads.
Always we look to our leaders
To change what we ourselves must change
With the force of our voices and the force
Of our souls and the strength of our dreams
And the clarity of our visions and the strong
Work of our hands. Too often we get fixated
On symbols. We think fame ought to promote
Our cause, that presidents ought to change our
Destinies, that more of our faces on television
Will somehow make life easier and more just
For our people. But symbols ought to only be
A sign to us that the power is in our hands.
Mandela ought to be a sign to us that we cannot
Be kept down, that we are self-liberating.
And Obama ought to be a sign to us that
There’s no destiny in colour. There is only
Destiny in our will and our dreams and the storms
Our nos can unleash and the wonder our yesses
Can create. But we have to do the work ourselves
To change the structures so we can be free.
Freedom is not colour; freedom is thought
An attitude, a power of spirit,
A constant self-definition.
So what Obama did and did
Not do is neither here nor there,
In the great measure of things.
History knows what he did, against the odds.
History knows what he could not do.
Not that his hands were tied,
But that those who resent
The liberation of one who
Ought not to be liberated
Blocked those doors and those roads
And whipped up those sleeping
And those not so sleeping demons
Of race, twin deities of America.
And they turned his yes into no
Just so they could say that they told us so,
Told us that colour makes ineffectuality,
Colour makes destiny.
They wanted him to fail so they
Could prove their case.
Can’t you see it?
But that’s what heroes do:
They come right through
All that blockage,
All those obstacles thrown
In the path of the self-liberated.
Then the symbol would be tainted
And would fail to be a beacon
And a sign that it is possible
To be black and great.
Ali overcame that tough fate.
Mandela transfigured white hate.
Obama, twice, became the head of state.
I don’t trust mirrors. Many of them lie.
We need dreams to show us what we can be
And images to show us where we are.
What we are is too nebulous to be defined
By class or colour or gender or height.
We are beyond definition. The state
Can’t measure our true estate.
Not the school we attended
Nor our parent’s name, nor the university
We studied at, nor the forms of apprenticeship
That life offered can define or measure
Our cosmic potentiality.
No one can define us except ourselves.
From the beginning of time no such
Limit was ever made as part
Of the immortal truth of things.
No god, no race,
No force, no state,
No secret prejudice
Can set a seal
On what we are,
What we can be.
For we are made
With the first force
That shaped the stars
And galaxies.
That’s all I want to say.
Changers of the world
Say it in their own way.
Midday
AFRICA IS A REALITY NOT SEEN
africa is a reality not seen
a dream not understood
its wars are the scab of a wound
its famine the cracking of seeds
its dictatorships a child torturing
beetles in a field.
its soul’s older than atlantis
and like all things old,
it’s being reborn,
and doesn’t know it.
countless cycles of civilisation
and destruction are lost in its memory
but not in its myths.
africa is a living enigma
an old woman taken for a child
a wise man taken for a fool
a beggar who is also a great king.
A BROKEN SONG
For Ken Saro-Wiwa
that he was jailed
and tortured
and killed
for loving his homeland
the earth
and crying out at its
defilement is
monstrously unfitting
we live in unnatural times
> and we must make
them natural again
with our wailing
for unnatural times
then become natural
by tradition
and by silence.
that is why the nations
today ring out
with injustice
with lies
with prejudice
made natural
the earth deserves our love
only the unnatural ones
can live at ease
while they poison the lands
rape her for gain
bleed her for oil
and not even attempt
to heal her wounds
only unnaturals
rule our nations today
so deaf to the wailing
of our skies, of the hungry
of the strange new diseases
and of that dying earth
bleeding, wounded,
and breeding grim deserts
where once there were
proud trees of africa
cleaning their rich green hair
in the bright winds of heaven
that he was jailed
for loving his homeland
and tortured
and killed
for protecting his own people
and crying out
like the ancient town criers did
at the defilement of the earth
is monstrously unfitting.
we live in an unnatural age
and we must make
it natural again
with our singing
our intelligent rage
DECOLONISATION
From Fanon
it never takes place unnoticed.
like a blade before your eyes.
it transforms those crushed with
their nothingness into central
performers under the floodlight
of history’s blood-like gaze.
a new rhythm, by dew
men brought, a language new
minted from the old
earth, a humanity remade
by vaporising chains
and the brutal alembic
of oppression. it’s the way
new beings are forged,
from fire and rage,
distilled into clear dawn.
but nothing supernatural
presides over this renewal.
no deities or heroes
or famed individuals.
the new becomes
being the same way
it became free.
ON RACE
ignorance thinks there’s black and white
ignorance thinks there’s them and us
ignorance thinks of outsiders and insiders
ignorance thinks about skin and not heart
ignorance thinks one race is better than another
ignorance thinks people should be kept apart
ignorance thinks nothing unites us all
ignorance fears the foreign and unknown
ignorance is the soul of cowardice and fear