Fubaraibi Benstowe was born in 1991 in Bonny Kingdom, Rivers State Nigeria and attended the Niger Delta University in Bayelsa State Nigeria where he obtained bachelor Degree in Electrical/Electronic Engineering. His poetry works has been published in the Nigeria/South-Korea Poetry anthology, Mariner ANA Bayelsa State literary Magazine and other publications. In 2014 he was a guest poet in the Ake Art and Book festival in Abeokuta, Ogun State.Fubara was listed as top ten finalists in the Africa-wide BN Poetry Award in 2014 based in Uganda, and in 2016 was long listed for the same award. In 2013 he was a recipient of the Certificate of Excellence from the Girl Child Creativity concept of Zimbabwe in Collaboration with the Society of Young Nigerian Writers.
Orukoro Dancer
“Child, weep not
Mother will be fine”
Still Tonye’s voice went out
Surpassing the rolling drums
To win mother’s attention,
Her hands stretched forth
Forcing body through dense crowd
To mar mother’s drunken steps,
She, solitary Lass, soaked with her tears,
Weaved a cry:
“Mother! Mother!
What have they done to you mother!?
It’s me your daughter!
Come! Come homeward!”
But all were health tips for pigs.
Dancer, canoe to the unseen paddler
Dancer, slave to the spiritual native banter
Feet, chalk-patterned by her painter
Body, clad with white and red George-wrapper,
Danced forward, danced backward,
Danced drummers-ward, danced viewers-ward,
Danced, Shell to her marine partner
Danced she, beats after beats, songs after songs,
Swung, palm leaves at wind’s gate.
Ah! Several fresh eggs went lost to her belly.
Then I replaced the soil on my soles with another
Weaving pity in my heart
Pity for viewers, lost in spirit’s huddle
Spirits who seek for more canoes to paddle.
Note:Orukoro dancers are women (most times men) who dance to certain drumbeats under the influence of a marine spirit, at these times, songs and drums are played for them by members of their Orukoro society. Viewers usually come out in their numbers to witness the dance-steps and drumbeats. This experience does not happen frequently, but occasionally.
The word Orukoro means the coming down of a deity, but in this case it is usually the marine deity that possesses a person.
The Orukoro societies are worshippers of marine deities in many Ijaw communities in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States of Nigeria.
Mob Justice
Now you shine your teeth
At the unbroken wailings of your victims
Whose pleadings are nothing but rolling balls
Rebounding like vacuums’ echoes.
Now in your noisy courts
You pass verdicts according to laws
Written in your eyes,
On your scratchy fingers,
Inpatient Mobs.
Tell me
Must these necks be heavy laden
With snail shells that rings and dangles?
Or, mud-coated bodies strip-dance
With whips and woof-sound mockeries?
Must these heads be heavy loaded?
With yams caught them tapping?
And stagger street to street like drunken old men?
Their skin is set aflame
In the midst of your tyres
In the midst of gazing crowds,
The life no man can mould,
Now quench under your ruthless finger.
Billions heaped for next tomorrow’s Children
You watch
City Bridge funds kicked into money houses,
You scream.
Before your eyes
Genocide springs under ambush of pen-bandits
While the graves welcome those who come
In the name of chronic hunger.
The unlucky are arraigned for fair hearing
As Men arguer deeply before the judge
You watch, you read, then you wait.
Executioners
Tell me, where is the equality of man?
The sound of gavels visiting the high and low.
I DARE NOT SPIT ON YOUR GRAVES
I dare not spit on your graves
Even if my mouth be filled with saliva
Or, at lightless time when no eye sees me,
I dare not spit on your graves
Even as my eyes still drip rain
And heart bleeds at the utterance of that history.
Ah! The future is a fisherman’s net
We cannot tell the number of fishes it will gather,
If you had known, I’m sure, very sure
You wouldn’t had hid ours under the rug
And trade with another’s tongue.
See! The rays of slave era has long been gone
Yet your flaws still stand strong
On the soil of enlighten descendents.
I dare not spit on your graves
…cos in our hands I have found
The feeds that enrich your flaws
And apathy that mutilates our pride,
I dare not spit on your graves
But pray fervently for Ibani clan
And those that sit on her chairs.
The Flood
Fellows,
We too have danced to this painful throb
Shed rain, sweat and blood,
Some paddled through farmlands
Only to watch green sweat
Slouch to ocean sides,
Some groped in liquid darkness
Wrestling the Wilds with fears and qualms
But water is water, and land is land
He who must follow breath’s path
Must leave the beds for the crabs.
Now the flag is white
And we have returned home
When canoes no longer sail through sitting rooms
Or Crabs sleep in cooking pots, fireless,
When Crocodiles no longer landlord our quarters
Forcing men to seek asylum in shabby camps
When Fishes no longer perch on trees
Or Oysters sit on easy-chairs.
We have returned happily
Like men whose net has befriend a kingfish.
But all the gold have gone, who took them?
“Go ask the flood,
Maybe they were stolen to Cameroon,” they answered,
Ah! Do gold now float on water,
That it be stolen by ebbing flood?
“Maybe they did, just ask the flood”
Cheih! Fellows, wouldn’t it sound insane if I ask the flood
Who stole my gold and left my plastics intact?
I pray thee let Love lead our steps.
The Poet can be reached at the following-https://www.facebook.com/benfubi,
benfubi@gmail.com.
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Great pieces, amazing.
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Thank you Anita for leaving a comment on the this blog post . Keep the peace and Love.
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