THE POEM BOOK

A LAGOON, A HARBOUR AND A ROAD NOT TAKEN (NIGERIA, AMERICA, AMERICA )
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ODIA OFEIMUN
Lagoon

I let the lagoon speak for my memory
though offended by water hyacinth
waste and nightsoil…

I still let the Lagoon reclaim
the seduction of a land moving
with the desire of a sailing ship
pursuing a known star

The Lagoon speaks
like a foetus remembering the future,
listening from the depths of formless song
for the Words that break
against the voyages of discovery
in the discovery of voyages

My Lagoon speaks!
gateway and storehouse; never dry,
in regatta floats hauling epic seasons
in floods that take over
the lordly garbage of our alleys
after the rains
have registered their pity

I let the Lagoon speak for my memory
to teach me how to scoff
at the lines drawn on water
to divide the earth

I let the Lagoon teach me
to forget street names
in order to gulp whole cities
like a glass of kola wine.

__________ 

TPB's notes: found online. from "Lagos of the Poets", edited by Odia Ofeimun, published by Hornbill House, Lagos 2010. 

First poem we ever read or heard of him.  

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CARL SANDBURG

The Harbor

Passing through huddled and ugly walls,
By doorways where women haggard
Looked from their hunger-deep eyes,
Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands,
Out from the huddled and ugly walls,
I came sudden, at the city's edge,
On a blue burst of lake,
Long lake waves breaking under the sun
On a spray-flung curve of shore;
And a fluttering storm of gulls,
Masses of great gray wings
And flying white bellies
Veering and wheeling free in the open.

__________ 

TPB's notes: Source: Poetry (March 1914).

First poem we ever read or heard of him.

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ROBERT FROST
The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

__________ 

TPB's notes: Source: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536

First poem we ever read of him.

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