A single sliver of the sun descends,
To paint a golden stripe upon the stone;
The only guest the outer cosmos sends,
To visit him who sits and waits alone.
He tracks the amber path across the floor,
A sundial for the soul’s slow, steady crawl;
It promises a world beyond the door,
And writes a silent gospel on the wall.
This light is Ogun’s eye, a burning spark,
That keeps the creeping shadows at a distance,
And provides a lighthouse in the heavy dark,
To fortify the marrow of resistance.
The jailers lock the gate and turn the key,
But light and thought remain forever free.
10. The Trial of the Mind (A Petrarchan Sonnet)
They sought to "drill through to his sanity,"
With silence as a sharpened, clinical tool,
To turn the scholar to a stuttering fool,
And drown his voice in vast inanity.
But he found refuge in humanity,
By clinging to the poet's rigid rule;
In that dry heat, he found a mental pool,
To wash away the state's profanity.
He built a bridge of breath and memory,
Linking the Kaduna cell to forest floors,
And ancient myths of gods and bravery.
He walked through locked and bolted iron doors,
Rejecting every mask of slavery,
To stand as master of his internal shores.
11. The Broken Silence (A Shakespearean Sonnet)
The walls have ears, but he has tongue and pen,
(Though ink is hidden in a hollowed frame);
He writes for all the "living-dead" of men,
Who have no voice to speak their bitter name.
The shuttle flies until the cloth is thick,
A shroud for tyrants, or a flag for truth;
Each heartbeat is a steady, rhythmic tick,
That counts the stolen summers of his youth.
But when the gates at last are swung aside,
The "Man" emerges, tempered by the fire,
With nothing left to fear and naught to hide,
A seasoned string upon a nation's lyre.
The crypt is empty, but the songs remain,
To break the link of every mental chain.
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