So the thing I want the most to do is ask
Why Cleopatra’s Needle pierces history
From Luxor to Paris, London and New York
Why Muhammad Ali gave our monument away?
But you know that that can’t be true
The thing I want to do the most is touch
That heat lodged in the core of desire
When she wields her warrior’s cry.
The thing I want to feel the most is time
As river or ether, perhaps both
Tied to timelessness inside her warmth
Who is the girl with eyes I always loved.
Those things I tend to want the most are shy
And obstinate as fuck when I pursue
And so I learnt to wait the while I live
For then the things I want the most come in.
©Tade Ipadeola
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Tade Ipadeola is an award-winning Nigerian poet who writes in English and Yoruba. He is a practising lawyer. In 2013 his poetry collection “The Sahara Testaments” won the prestigious Nigeria Prize for Literature instituted by the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG). In 2009, he won the Delphic Laurel in Poetry for his Yoruba poem “Songbird” at the Delphic Games in Jeju, South Korea.
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…yet closing the same gap that had long been left widened since the closure of Mbari…the Agbowo accolade you have chosen is a reconfiguration of the relationship between the academia and the loyalty to a bouyant city named “agbowo” that had hosted the like of Achebe, Soyinka, JP Clark, Remi Raji and the like. The spirit of poetics rekindled…
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I remember meeting with Mr Tade at his Pastor’s house earlier his year. I learnt a lot about asa (culture). This is a wonderful piece!