A Fire in My Head

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by Ben Okri

till your life bleeds

  you frozen in fear, or blistered in rage

  singing on a vacant stage

  you in poverty or in wealth

  some vision draws us on

  which we must heed

  or not be born.

  HAMLET

  we’re always asking ourselves

  why this young man is so intense.

  there’s something about him

  that’s more than what he seems.

  the play ends and you have a sense

  of something unfinished.

  as if it were a step

  in an obscure initiation.

  how confined that world seems,

  as if elsinore were an alchemical

  vessel where all the heat

  of those passions served only

  to transform the inner temperature

  of some subterranean event.

  but he’s not what he is.

  the world he’s enclosed in

  is only part of a long journey.

  part of an ongoing process.

  do you know the next stage?

  it might be written in a hundred years;

  perhaps it’s been composed

  already: a novel, a poem,

  a painting whose meaning

  always eludes us till

  we approach the figure

  at the threshold.

  can’t escape the feeling

  of the unfinished.

  that death ends nothing. why?

  nothing is diminished.

  because another death

  is referred to, not the death

  of one person, with a name

  and a history, but another death,

  we must pass through

  on the way to a mysterious

  light. but how like a phase

  in the great work it feels,

  not calcination, with its black

  earth and its skull,

  but something further down

  the liminal process,

  like fermentation, where a deep

  change has begun, the intellect

  awoken, the soul coming out

  of its coarse material shell,

  to glimpse the infinite heavens

  A LITTLE SONG

  the sun’s smiling at me today

  even when the snow’s here.

  birds are full of wonder

  at the changing celestial sphere

  my heart’s warm with laughter

  the roads are clear

  girls are walking on frost

  with the lights in their hair

  the sky’s an undreamed-of palette

  and branches are sifting the wind

  all things are secretly dreaming

  of passion and mysterious spring

  February 1991

  IN A TEMPLE IN SEOUL

  is it penance or an act

  in a long journey

  to true enlightenment?

  sacrifice or a rite

  of purification,

  symbolic rite,

  spiritual discipline,

  lesson or the koan

  of a noviciate?

  in the temple these

  questions haunt me

  as i contemplate

  the woman who

  polishes the wooden

  floor till it shines

  like the buddha’s light.

  without a pause,

  and with thoroughness,

  she polishes and cleans

  places that are already

  polished and clean,

  with her cloth mop.

  whatever we tread on

  she cleans.

  her act is perpetual.

  the purpose isn’t

  merely to shine the floor,

  nor merely to get rid

  of dirt. her purpose seems

  more mysterious,

  as though she wants

  to eliminate the minutest speck

  of dust and dirt

  from the calm presence

  of the gold buddha.

  the temple is a beautiful

  riot of colours: greens,

  yellows, and reds.

  dragons loom with tongues

  of fire from high places.

  yet, for all that colour,

  such calm.

  the space there is vaster

  than it seems

  and peace adds dimensions

  to a room, a study or temple.

  we sit on prayer mats,

  cross-legged, surrounded

  by one thousand

  buddhas. a small kama

  for carrying women

  in ancient times

  rests in a blue corner.

  the decorated drum

  on a stand

  resonates in silence.

  all around us

  the woman polishes

  every inch of the floor.

  works without emotion.

  cleansing

  the universe

  of suffering

  and sin.

  CONVERGENCE

  For Michael Aminian

  language from the mouths.

  screams from the earth.

  all around the globe is burning.

  deep inside we’re all connected.

  world is bleeding,

  soul is reeling,

  there’s a global fever

  and money is weeping

  only the poor shed tears

  above the earth.

  sustenance is dwindling.

  clouds glow with poisoned fumes.

  we think we’re safe

  but we’re breathing in death,

  the death of dreams

  and all that it means.

  oil spews ruining farmlands.

  innocent shores receive

  the west’s toxic waste

  palmtree forests

  have become rivers of oil slick;

  mountains of gold

  have become craters of dead stones.

  have you seen the mountain

  wastes of tanzania where

  they mine the earth

  and fill it with dark fear?

  have you gone deep

  into the grim bowels

  of mozambique

  and been buried for less

  than an apple’s price?

  there’s a weird logic in the world.

  the truly rich countries are poor

  and the truly poor countries are rich.

  where there should be

  harvests of ripe laughter

  there are just the shadows

  of hungry children in the streets.

  there’s a red dust

  in the blue skies of guinea;

  the bauxite pulled from its earth

  like golden teeth

  could sprinkle paradise

  from the red soil.

  but the earth is burned

  and mango trees lean out

  from open mines.

  many lands with their shacks

  and abundant trashheaps,

  orange umbrellas in marketplaces

  and gas combustion on the edge

  of forests have an infernal doorway

  into ever-vanishing paradise.

  in marikana the spirits of apartheid

  endure in crooked ventures.

  dance with me along the timeline.

  the silk road and the spice trade route

  have thrown out red bridges

  to little villages

  with tents and shimmering deserts.

  the real history of the future will be

  the story of the transformation of the poor;

  from kolkata to lagos,

  from london to laos,

  from nuremberg to timbuktu.

  There’s a new language on the lips:

  either justice or death,

  either collaboration

 
or the fire of the gods

  hurled by the unforgiving hunger

  of the world’s broken children.

  it’s time to change the nature of the game,

  time to write on the face of the earth

  the value and meaning of every name.

  OBAMA

  Sometimes the world is changed

  When the right person appears.

  But the right person

  Is also the right time.

  The time and the person

  Have to work the secret

  Alchemy together.

  To change the world is more

  Than just changing its laws.

  Sometimes it’s just

  Being a new possibility,

  A portal through which new

  Fire can enter this world

  Of folly and error.

  They change the world best who

  Alter the way we think.

  For our thoughts make our world.

  Some think it’s our deeds;

  But deeds are the visible

  Children of thought.

  The thought-changers are the game-

  Changers, are the life-changers.

  We think achievements are symbols.

  But symbols aren’t symbols.

  They are often what they

  Are in themselves.

  Obama is not a mere symbol.

  Sometimes even a symbol is a sign

  That we aren’t dreaming potently

  Enough. A sign that the world is the home

  Of possibility. A sign that our chains

  Are unreal. That we’re freer than we

  Know, that we’re more powerful than

  We dare to think. If he’s a symbol,

  Then it’s of some kind of liberation.

  A symbol also that power in this world

  Can’t do everything. Even Moses couldn’t

  Set his people free. They had to

  Wander in the wilderness. They too

  Turned against their leaders

  And away from their God

  And had to overcome themselves

  And their history to arrive

  At the vision their prophets

  Had long before.

  Being a Black president

  Is not a magic wand

  That will make all

  Black problems disappear.

  Leaders alone cannot

  Undo all the evils that

  Structural evil makes

  Natural in the life

  Of a people. Not just leadership;

  Structures must change.

  Structures of thought

  Structures of dreams

  Structures of injustice

  Structures that keep

  A people imprisoned

  To the stones and the dust

  And the ash and the dirt,

  The dry earth, the dead roads.

  Always we look to our leaders

  To change what we ourselves must change

  With the force of our voices and the force

  Of our souls and the strength of our dreams

  And the clarity of our visions and the strong

  Work of our hands. Too often we get fixated

  On symbols. We think fame ought to promote

  Our cause, that presidents ought to change our

  Destinies, that more of our faces on television

  Will somehow make life easier and more just

  For our people. But symbols ought to only be

  A sign to us that the power is in our hands.

  Mandela ought to be a sign to us that we cannot

  Be kept down, that we are self-liberating.

  And Obama ought to be a sign to us that

  There’s no destiny in colour. There is only

  Destiny in our will and our dreams and the storms

  Our nos can unleash and the wonder our yesses

  Can create. But we have to do the work ourselves

  To change the structures so we can be free.

  Freedom is not colour; freedom is thought

  An attitude, a power of spirit,

  A constant self-definition.

  So what Obama did and did

  Not do is neither here nor there,

  In the great measure of things.

  History knows what he did, against the odds.

  History knows what he could not do.

  Not that his hands were tied,

  But that those who resent

  The liberation of one who

  Ought not to be liberated

  Blocked those doors and those roads

  And whipped up those sleeping

  And those not so sleeping demons

  Of race, twin deities of America.

  And they turned his yes into no

  Just so they could say that they told us so,

  Told us that colour makes ineffectuality,

  Colour makes destiny.

  They wanted him to fail so they

  Could prove their case.

  Can’t you see it?

  But that’s what heroes do:

  They come right through

  All that blockage,

  All those obstacles thrown

  In the path of the self-liberated.

  Then the symbol would be tainted

  And would fail to be a beacon

  And a sign that it is possible

  To be black and great.

  Ali overcame that tough fate.

  Mandela transfigured white hate.

  Obama, twice, became the head of state.

  I don’t trust mirrors. Many of them lie.

  We need dreams to show us what we can be

  And images to show us where we are.

  What we are is too nebulous to be defined

  By class or colour or gender or height.

  We are beyond definition. The state

  Can’t measure our true estate.

  Not the school we attended

  Nor our parent’s name, nor the university

  We studied at, nor the forms of apprenticeship

  That life offered can define or measure

  Our cosmic potentiality.

  No one can define us except ourselves.

  From the beginning of time no such

  Limit was ever made as part

  Of the immortal truth of things.

  No god, no race,

  No force, no state,

  No secret prejudice

  Can set a seal

  On what we are,

  What we can be.

  For we are made

  With the first force

  That shaped the stars

  And galaxies.

  That’s all I want to say.

  Changers of the world

  Say it in their own way.

  Midday

  AFRICA IS A REALITY NOT SEEN

  africa is a reality not seen

  a dream not understood

  its wars are the scab of a wound

  its famine the cracking of seeds

  its dictatorships a child torturing

  beetles in a field.

  its soul’s older than atlantis

  and like all things old,

  it’s being reborn,

  and doesn’t know it.

  countless cycles of civilisation

  and destruction are lost in its memory

  but not in its myths.

  africa is a living enigma

  an old woman taken for a child

  a wise man taken for a fool

  a beggar who is also a great king.

  A BROKEN SONG

  For Ken Saro-Wiwa

  that he was jailed

  and tortured

  and killed

  for loving his homeland

  the earth

  and crying out at its

  defilement is

  monstrously unfitting

  we live in unnatural times

>   and we must make

  them natural again

  with our wailing

  for unnatural times

  then become natural

  by tradition

  and by silence.

  that is why the nations

  today ring out

  with injustice

  with lies

  with prejudice

  made natural

  the earth deserves our love

  only the unnatural ones

  can live at ease

  while they poison the lands

  rape her for gain

  bleed her for oil

  and not even attempt

  to heal her wounds

  only unnaturals

  rule our nations today

  so deaf to the wailing

  of our skies, of the hungry

  of the strange new diseases

  and of that dying earth

  bleeding, wounded,

  and breeding grim deserts

  where once there were

  proud trees of africa

  cleaning their rich green hair

  in the bright winds of heaven

  that he was jailed

  for loving his homeland

  and tortured

  and killed

  for protecting his own people

  and crying out

  like the ancient town criers did

  at the defilement of the earth

  is monstrously unfitting.

  we live in an unnatural age

  and we must make

  it natural again

  with our singing

  our intelligent rage

  DECOLONISATION

  From Fanon

  it never takes place unnoticed.

  like a blade before your eyes.

  it transforms those crushed with

  their nothingness into central

  performers under the floodlight

  of history’s blood-like gaze.

  a new rhythm, by dew

  men brought, a language new

  minted from the old

  earth, a humanity remade

  by vaporising chains

  and the brutal alembic

  of oppression. it’s the way

  new beings are forged,

  from fire and rage,

  distilled into clear dawn.

  but nothing supernatural

  presides over this renewal.

  no deities or heroes

  or famed individuals.

  the new becomes

  being the same way

  it became free.

  ON RACE

  ignorance thinks there’s black and white

  ignorance thinks there’s them and us

  ignorance thinks of outsiders and insiders

  ignorance thinks about skin and not heart

  ignorance thinks one race is better than another

  ignorance thinks people should be kept apart

  ignorance thinks nothing unites us all

  ignorance fears the foreign and unknown

  ignorance is the soul of cowardice and fear

 

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