Akintunde, Come Home
If a man’s mouth is small
must he borrow a bigger one
to talk to his child?
Akintunde, I have told you to come,
come home from the land
where life is a race in which
the strong trample the weak, dashing
for the fluttering fragments
of stolen trophies
Come away from bubbles
which melt like wax
before a raging blaze
Come home, son, from a land
where money is god
appeased with a daily toll of skulls
come home before the sword you wield
turns round to claim your neck
Come home, son,
for we cannot be all iroko
slapping the sky’s face
with imperious boughs
while the lower forest
dies a sunless death
at our unfeeling feet
come away from the fold
of sun stealers
Come back here
where the walls are mud
and meatless meals quiet
the howling stomach
come back here
where dreams spun on campaign promises
snap in the noisy bellies
of belching parliaments
Come home, son,
through our thatched roofs
we can see the devouring deluge
of looming clouds
Akintunde, come home
for though a man’s penis is small
he will not borrow a bigger one
to fill up his wife’s nagging mouth.
— Niyi Osundare
“Akintunde, Come Home” is a forty-two-line poem written by Professor Niyi Osundare. The poem is structured into seven stanzas.
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Very good