THE STRANGER MAN

 Once a foetus when I began the venture

And sloughed from the cove of the womb

Now closer the monstrous possessions

I built of life on the foundation of a tomb;

Thus, wherein no dust, no flesh beside.

‘Tis a drab and dull existence

Grey and brown, the sky and earth

A clime, an ambience right for sojourn

But routine tasks, to eat, sleep and work.

Planting and reaping, we worn out

Before the land or the land before us.

Hence we give way or a way given us.

‘Tis I crave to be what i have been not;

And to have all that i have had not;

Ambitions and longings all clothed me,

I strove, but time takes precedence

As fate takes her turn upon my scheme

And circadian Sculptor works my figure. 

It’s a small world, I heard them say

But at least, lengthy enough to rove

And wide to play china man’s ping-pong.

And true by Smokie’s proposition:

Though the world is overcrowded,

You still found an empty place.

All through this circuitous life I fare,

Either am leaving people and things

I come across or they are leaving me;

As time, fate, God, my actions demand.

Nothing I own and nothing own me

Except to pay the price of time span

More the span, more the price to pay.

For all Being bequeathed a portion

Of life’s incubus as well as of life’s jollity,

For then are both inter-meshed within the mind

To settle with those who accommodate them.

‘Tis the fear of incubus and need of jollity

Are life’s bother for minds concerned with them.

The world, us she owes nothing but

Her we owe all, her possessions encompassed

And she demands forfeiture, her bottom bared

To swallow up all her debtors.

Comforts and pleasures fled the flesh

Which we have nourished and fatten for the soil;

Is manure for grains, fertilizer for greens

To nourish and fatten yet their sons.

She is the mother, wife and daughter of men

Spewed from her womb to swallow them again.

The earth pallid not with her neighbours,

Alone the unlimited space wanders on,

Yet to build a nest but to tramp the sphere,

As an outcast in ageless time to wander on.

So with her I wander through the labyrinth of life.

Unlike them, they that sit like the poles

Abuse the hobos and dislike the traverser

And build for the muckish flesh foundations

So that they cannot budge from the land;

The wandering earth too has infest

With a fleeting life as the weary wanderer.

They who posses tire out and loose more in keeping.

As homeowner never have I felt at home

But closer home as squatter and settler.

The crop man crops his way through life,

The dry cleaner cannot subdue the muck;

The well heeled can’t afford inner balm with yen.

I need no fortune or fame nor power

For they like lime soot gathered in the wind

And meshed with the clay of the flesh

Makes the heart heavy and stick with the globe

Cannot transcend the sphere’s limitations.

I seek not a weighty but soothing heart,

And forgo to hear the distant willow song

And reminiscences of the howling pine.

Once a man of good standing, well ‘heeled.

Goods of sorts and plots like Sahara I got

Heaps and bundles, piles upon mounds

Of all necessities and apparatus,

Strings and outlets of a bee hive

The routes and channels of sub-Saharan trades

Sprawled everywhere; I a trade mogul.

I built myself an edifice like a pagoda

Loomed from sky over sprawling trench huts

Swarmed about as of winnowed chaff.

I have carved a niche and engraved a name

On rottenstone before the windward way.

I knew all I own, but myself, I know not.

Myself, shall I lost at one time

And all my acquirement at another time,

Which soever shall be the first to

The both must cease and be gone to scheol!

Alas I fear for my life and all I own;

Intermittent angst about the world, life,

Of growing old and what becomes of me!

But why, even as through the years I struggled

Earning “moolah” in order to live life,

Now realize life has not the worth of diamond

For even tramps and wastrels earn it abundantly.

I esteem life so much as fishes their worms

But more estimable for me to traverse through

That it cloys me not, to traverse its travails.

Even as worms serve the belly of the fish,

Think not the fish it serves the belly of another?

Enough of life had I, enough a wastrel

Now shall wander by feet as by heart roam.

The past is fraught with ignorance, yet now,

I am saddled with pain and vexations and

My expectations look to future of improbabilities.

Of life I shall ease myself of her bond neither

Let her cloy to me, but fly my affectations away.

I shall burden no more the future;

Why? It’s yet an abstraction. I contrive no agenda,

Except now, I do and walk my work.

I ease myself of all worries

And drift where I may such as liberal

As a wind and unheeding to the obstruction

Where of the fate of the wind lies.

With same velocity on toward the hurdle

And whether it shall scale through or not

It is of no concern to the wind.

In this wise, once I burdened the future.

Of what will be is the mundane-minded query

Always to guard against the future

Is as to the cloud preventing away from sight.

Thus I scrimp and stake all that I earn

As savings for futurity yet behind the cloud

Haba…again and again lost it all in a duel

With forces of circumstance ascribe not to!

Love is an elusive finch that flutters

And made me become both foolish and wise.

The elixirs of love are the very banes,

Anxiety, longing, heartbreak…name me!

So lovesick for love I lost compos mentis.

It is all a delusion I bargain with my heart

I pursue her no more, let her seek for me

If she loves and I shall test her genuineness

With life-span patience while I wander still

Till I return we shall unite yonder the horizon.

The mind alone the power of love can feel

And her essence can tell in absence of her.

Let it be so, I shall not be enamored

While she crave for my presence

My wistful heart is not for her I see

I do without her and keep the beat on

I sold her my heart even in absence

And now she is gone to have a soma.

Farewell dear to blow air to the wind.

Why tug scudding cloud and cling a shadow?

I will let go of all I love and heave the burden

Not on my shoulder but the ease of my heart.

From the piles of corporeal stocks abscond,

I tire of them because they content me not

From years searching for gold and myadestes afield… 

But from within the recess of my heart I find

An amber gilded gem concealed in the depth.

I never was good mixer having to know first myself

For men someday shall walk the solitary path

While also to sing the soloist song;

Friends are strangers for they shall depart

And strangers are friends for they shall arrive.

I will guard not against rules, but my conscience

And never shall exult in the esteem of men

For we all are brothers and sisters and friends,

Offspring of the muck whose bosom we embrace.

I live my life like a passing wind

Gently surfing through all the matters of life

Engendered and crafted by the hands of humans;

I view all things and weight their values.

They, as of a running stream on beds of rocks

The waters never lie still or become absorbed

So that water and rock cannot conjoin

So is my life with the materials of earth.

Are mine to find acquaintance….

When the heavens mourn, plants flourish,

When heaven is at its brightest moment

The plants of the earth shrivel in misery?

Yet they complement a cultivatable life.

I shall adapt to the intrigue and go my way.

I am brimmed full of her…life, life, life…!

Her great bowel is fraught with stale noise,

And she breaks wind into the atmosphere!

I am disgusted and will wander off

Wherever I shall have the balm of silence.

Silence is the overall answer to the

Nagging conundrums of the world.

I have had enough of the din and roar, now

I seek wisdom in the quietude of nature.

In a million of roar and hullabaloo of life

I find not a lesson to take to heart

But in a single word from silence

I have acquired a million lessons!

I will live in the prudence of silence and

Quiet my name, my pride, my ambitions.

Lo, the silence of God and the silence

Of nature makes me uncomfortable

To see my vain humanity and cravings

But in that shall i seek safety and solace!

Much has been the noise about love and

Peace yet to find. I shall deny myself goods

And seek peace from the alcove of my heart!

What is more to life, to eat, to breathe,

To be honoured or to acquire goods?

I tire of this humdrum existence.

It is one mind from bad to good,

It is one spirit from Jainism to Islam,

It is one flesh from poverty to wealth,

Only the result from the aura tells.

Hear, both tears and laughter have

Complement my health.

A man in a cell is being restrained by law

And same a man on the open street is being

Restrained by custom and constitution.

A man who knew was once not in existence

And cry to have come forth from womb

Why weep again who is to be gone to oblivion?

Before I tramp the course of my cause,

A family indeed we were, I and Kole

But I short of years from the other.

Only by words we keep memory of

A deceased mother like morning dew

Sought for by the gloaming. We knew

Only a father whose right hand does

The masculine labour and his left hand

Undertook the feminine chore

And grew us up from tendril to maturity.

Nothing moves the heart as do feelings,

The impression creates of a moving mountain.

But with one mind accept I all that be

And live a life devoid of melodrama.

Behind laughter abide the trail of tears

And in my tears was laughter’s bare face.

Work, leisure, sickness, health, joy, sadness

Nothing so transporting or so flummoxing

As to heave my heart off the balance of life.

As an ass, it does not sigh over its burdens

And the camel do not complain of thirst

Through the drought of the desert.

By Fate’s design we lost Kole who had

Found natural escapism from life in death

Whereof the dead cannot forgo to return.

I left with a father I pampered and cared for

Always after his heels and by his lounge

And all lips hailed the good son of a father.

Time takes precedence to test all values

And fate takes no cognizance of kinship.

Every cord has been broken by birth.

Day by day is the wake of another day

And again it would go back to slumber.

Harmattan made the land to be bard,

It would smile while the sun is out but

Only to become moody with drops.

Playing, gaming, traveling, interacting,

Have excused the drabness of existence.

Below the earth is the hue of brown

And above the sky is the hue of grey.

I have left my father and home into

The city to make a fortune and a name

For they all have queried a son cannot

Always be a honeybunch to a father

But must seek to be a sovereign man.

Now I traverse through the fleeting land

All my goods and affiliates lay aside.

Being an heir, I am no heir to fleeting goods.

Why throw away the bad grains

And then store up the chaff?

I will walk through the sands of time until

I halt in my course to become sand.

A father I commit to the hands of nature

And goodwill of kinsmen and friends.

I chart a course from streets down the woods

And vanished then in her shadow.

I scaled the valley through wild growths

Aided by climbers up the hill to find

Rare manners of vegetation where

The beauty of nature manifest itself

As though by a wand overnight they spring

To spice the glory of morning ambience.

I never have jealous human as this.

I watched closely as they sprout in dew

And before the wind of the evenfall

They lay to rest quietly as they came

 As if there is no need to tarry in life

With all of her allurement and affinity.

I was back to the streets a poor hobo

Once at the head of a bounteous table

To roam and live on nature and alms

And denied of all things men have clung to.

The years carved my figure from aesthetic

To obscurity while I gain inner strength.

Here is the vanity of all human cravings,

Now I find tranquility from all bother

To find contentment comes from the depth

Of the heart. It is the poor knows not

The inner wrangling, swellings, fears

Worries and expectations of the rich,

Thus they languish at their lot, for no sake.

Yet I am neither rich nor poor;

Riches and poverty is a thing of the mind

For them content with what life can afford.

 Even now, the whirlwind of time

Have swept memories of common faces.

In dearth of all necessities I cast care aside,

Resigned of all lofty thoughts. My heart

Adrift as of balloon in the limitless sky

And sailing like sampan in the pacific,

A wanderer I traverse the course of life.

Years were dead and revived with

The cyclic motion of heavenly body but not

The fate of human. I embed a mimetic trait     

Of heavenly body to return where I cradle

And as if coincidence has a mindset, there

Was the news father has just lay to rest.

But I just begin my course and why say

Farewell to the dead as though I shall not

Traverse the path they go, just after.

And at the threshold, furrowed foreheads,

Sahara hairs and dimmed eyes stared at

The awful sight as sad sonorous voices

Greeted the estranged figure back home.

But then I relish the silence the dead enjoy

While yet I subsist through this fleeting

Circadian ambience. I hold so dear a dust

Being the substance of all form and has

A depth value than gold; for I seek not

A home for the flesh but the spirit.

And now I know not why they weep.

The women sprawled on the red earth

And chimed dirge. The men choked

With drooled heads like fern gently tossed

Sideways by a gentle wind.

Tears charged with tears compound tears

To drown serenity and reflection of vain life.

I mourn for the unusual not over you death.

Behind those mournful physiognomies are

Sheer mockery of the tranquil salve of sleep.

Who shall tell this death does not hurt

The dead but a panacea to life’s disquiet.  

I excuse the mourners to the chamber

Where the dead lay in state embalmed.

A father that has grown grey with time

And now has transcended life’s frivolity.

I take off the times of his worries, sicknesses,

Struggles, mad moments, sleep and expectations;

And I take off the time of the innocence

Of his childhood and the time of

Somberness of old age…life’s not worth it!

But here is what I observe, his face

Neither contorts with pain nor having

The furrows of life and not either with laxity

As of a smile or laughter but with an

Expression of indifference and by his stillness

On a straw bed, I felt a delusion of his personality

And cares of needs of the period of his life.

With a distance now I see a father dead

Just as I would see an hobo dead on the street;

It’s the same life and the same fate.

But let hearts make hollow beds and

Let tear drop fill them to a rush; if you shall

Pity the dead, what plight is the living?

I go my way and content me with sips of wine

Not with them that down it to the lee.

Eyes followed me about and heads waggle

As I alone ruminate by heart and foot

Neither consoling nor weeping for a father

That has at last find ease for himself.

I had nothing to give and no one afford me

Something and I exchange a glance or nod

For a pitying look or remark about the dead.

I stroll the yard to pick fruits for my stomach;

Life goes on and is moderate and considerate

As long as there are births and likewise deaths.

If humans do not grow old and die, they shall

Kill themselves young fighting for space.

 At first were some indistinct mumblings

Flown amiss by the air and then I observe

Heads beginning to cloister and one day,

Away on a psychic excursion, a voice whiffed

“You are the only surviving son of your father

But you have lost your heart and your goods

And you have become a stranger who cannot

Weep for the dead or show concern for them

Who weep for we cannot have sons as such.”

The last he said as to say to die is evil which

No one should welcome as life is concerned.

And I said I know he shall not wish to wake

From his sleep. And then I go my way.

But then it is affirmed I have lost my place

As a worthy son of the soil and what’s more

Shall take responsibility alone for the dead

While they all one after another left the scene.     

Fly you winds, out of my way; Hold your peace

Time, that my beard be not tainted…Impossible!

I shall subdue what is inevitable by embrace.

Once, shortly before this sojourn, with gifts

Acquaintances and relatives converged

And being unwitting make me a birthday fanfare

At home and were dismayed by my mood

For they accosted a weeping celebrant

Who has had a year in addition, they claim.

Every revolving of the earth by harvest time

Is that day I laid to cradle, I sober and weep

For a year more is deducted from my span

And brings me closer to limbo!

A birthday is not an addition of years from

The womb but subtraction of year to the tomb!

We have no consciousness at the time

We were born and of our time of death too

We have no acquaintance.

At the beginning is my end; everything

Has come to being in other to be extinct.

All expectation is in retrospection

Nothing is old, nothing is new,

Except the mind is captivated and swayed!

Complexity is composed of strings of simplicity,

Except we have taken simple things for granted

Which have become complicated things to us?

A while of time, I was roused by a tumult

Just outside the door of the hut I lay supine.

A gang of disturbers have all merged

And raised dust in the air into whirlwind

From a backdrop whispering now it is bruited

That I am responsible for the death of father

And what’s more, sanity has eluded me.

The moon of all her mildness and innocence

Have plagued the jealous sea to a wild row.

I laugh, but the surge has extended its bound

And I will have to fly in a ship from the land!

In this life my brother, there are among, two

Paramount destinations you make. The first,

That which you make to meet your love, family,

Kinsmen or any people affiliated with you

From where the root of your life spring.

The second, that which you make alone,

Without anyone to meet and never returns.

Now I have become a stranger to life

With nothing to cling to, goods and kinship.

I do not owe the world anymore and she

Has nothing to pay me for having to live.

I pay my regard to mankind and traverse

All alone the fleeting course of life

Looking towards lull beyond her allures…!

Come out of your inward complacency man!

Tell me; are you a stranger to the ways of life?

Where everyone strive to find accommodation

And savour, here you discard and traverse?

Ok. As a child would rest with innocence

On the bosom of the nanny so in this wise

I rest my case with time and fate!