Remi Raji's (Aderemi Raji-Oyelade) collections are Webs of Remembrance and A Harvest of Laughter (both Kraftbooks). He was born and currently lives in Ibadan, Nigeria, where he teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Ibidan.

Riddle II I AM... the clenched fist itching to break the brows of incontinent emperors the lonesome feather soothing the bloody tears of bruised stones the secret alphabet the sickle in surprised bosoms of gruesome weeds the eager axe driving rage into rocks seeking honey in cursed caves the zebu cow among cannibals the butcher's love neither frightens nor fascinates But am I not the cock, am I not the rope I feel no ease in this riddle of balance. The Spirit If Poetry be the murmurs of gods stake me stab me with the spirit of tongues if Poetry is the music of the mind bind me stake me to whispers of winsome winds... Teach me what rainfalls drum into corn-ears of Earth what the sunbird sings what wandering feet tell morning dews. If Poetry be the word which gives birth to flesh and phantoms of worlds show me what riverbeds hide from wandering eyes show me the monkey's path in a platoon of twines and trees Oh tell me the ancestry of age- less roads. Then tell me what desolate streets tell the prodigal sun what common lips tell the cruel crown what patient paupers ask the petty prince. And if Poetry be the horse of glee Give me the fluent kisses of flood above sand and stones. Give me the beauty in the storm the storm in that silent sea give me the cricket's horn the chameleon's loin the bee's tenor the parrot's echo the squirrel's sax the wind's flute... Give me the sunscript of dance Stake me, stretch me to the spirit house of songs. Flakes: An Haiku in Parts March 6, 2001; while waiting, delayed, inside Terminal 4 of JFK Airport, New York X Sandstorms... Windstorms... Snowstorms... The world so white, the wind so black My tropical feet need more springs to dance IX A death inside A mocking coldness all around A rare second A cosmetic sun peers unnoticed VIII The flaky white dust The battering male wind The skin-deep stings Icicles of rain without water Embodied and whitened storms This is my first story of snow... VII Twice I go deaf twice I live Numb to the world I can hear my accent in the wind I become the onion of a thousand cloths and colours VI Here the sky reminds me Of the saw-miller's pastime All my thought buried In the cold indifference of pine trees, and dust. V "1.00 a.m. outside Binghamton's Greyhound station? You will freeze to death, brother..." "Oh, African, does it even snow in your city?" "No, no," two trembling lips mutter "Unfortunately, my nation knows no flakes And I must add too, no earthquakes..." IV My curiosity has carried me this far, where Wetness is all the warmth I have Where Nature nullifies all knowledge And Science becomes trapped in her own laboratory of incest III Soon so soon I rinse my feet from this land Where the rainbow breaks in whitened storms II And soon, I will be back, away from another tropical storm Of lack, of lust, of anger and a different kind of hunger I will return burdened with robes next time I Sand, storms, snows... My wind gathers storms again This compulsion to know kills all coldness. Words can heal for LC, February 9, 2001 The septic wound of a thousand years smoothens In the dye-wool of tender metaphors... Words can seal the pain of a lifetime Words can make love to bleeding hearts And the most granite of looks can fail In the presence of wondrous words... The weak in battle becomes invicible in a clout of guided utterance... Words give us the music we drink, We dance, on the edge of limping words And when everything else fails We turn to the windy poetry of words The difference between the dead and the living Words, the surname of our lives.... Woman, wear the wind like the winsome night. To Durban: A Becoming... (2/6/2001) When I read my poem of fire I sought her face for vital signs I rolled my tongue into an algebra of dance & waited for the sugarcane break of her voice No, no, no she said. Your fire is innocent like the infant's grip at harvest time weak like the dying embers of a tired tourist You do not know my children, my child Uhmlazi, Empangeni, KwaDukuza Gingindlovu, Umhlanga, Amanzimtoti Do you know them: Umgeni, Inanda, KwaMashu Ntshongeni, the tribal teats of Thekwini Do you know them? No I said, but I will seek them all And I will sing for them till sunset and after the aftermath the secret tales of cleaving love I will write a tattoo of echoes & make your breasts the valley of a thousand stories Because I am the beautiful stem of your rainbow tree And my blood flows in the sorghum of this soil I will drive my fingers thro the trellis of your flesh I will be one with your seeds and your children shall know my name. She cuddled me into rapture, this woman of Bay Then she said: Listen ...here is the conquest of death the uncertainties of loving the rough magician's tale where hemlock becomes honey where history chases myths into silence and legends explode into history... here's the story of my becoming, Durban, or is it Thekweni? I will write the poem after this love lesson.