Bassie Basil Samura was born in Freetown and has been writing poetry since he was fifteen years old. He attended WAM Collegiate School and Bo Teachers College. He now resides in England, where he is a student at Cauldon College Stoke on Trent.

 

Ebony Woman

Isn't she beautiful?
Indeed!
Ebony woman, Salone woman
Your lappa round your waists
Chanting in unison
The funeral songs
Black-silk skins sweating
Under the torrid sun
Hands grasping the hoe
Unshod feet treading
On the rhythms, heaving
The sepulchral moulds.

With each step
A beat,
A drop;
Dripping libations
A prayer,
A sigh, to appease,
Purify, dead sons, dying children
Reaped untimely by uncouth hands
Seeds sown in laughter and jollity
On the bosom of the land
You love so well.

Your sacred image
Half standing
Half stooping
Mutely conveys
Strength, patience and endurance.
You'll linger, forever in our memories
Woman!
Strong and gentle hands
That have done
Countless chores
Never wearies still caresses
With tender care
Cajoles
Hushes.
Fortified we start afresh
With a shrug, a song
For better days
A brighter future.

 

Hearts Aflame

Our hearts aflame
Burn within us
The blood of your Kinsmen
Is in your hands
It will never go away
Never fade away.
Sweat of our labours
Went up in flames.
Who can contain…?
We cannot contain your greed.
Works of our hands
Is in your pockets
We cannot understand why
Can't understand this.
The groans of our Fathers
Is in our music
We'll ever chant
The distress in our souls
Madness of your hearts.
Our hearts aflame
Burn within us
For the innocence
Of your sisters
Is in your loins
Your desire shall surely fail.
The callousness of our boys
Is in your heads
Your conscience is your judge
The world your jury.
The grief of our mothers
Is in our songs
We'll ever wail
The madness in your hearts
The distress of our souls.

 

A Grand Finale

I have tasted life.
Sensed the twilight zone.
Seen painful poverty
Solemnity of a late moon - rising.

The riddle bursts
Scraped by elementary hands
A grand finale.

Uncertainly stoned by
A culture of silence
Pent up feelings
Certainly drugged by violence
Winnowed naked
My apex of grief has been reached
I lease my beginnings.
Living or dying
I have joy.

To live life
Sum total in poetry writing my songs of woe
My song of sorrow
My song of hope
And my song of joy.

Then I shall sing
My songs of love
Dipped in moonlight
For the common good.

 

Nuptial Song

Let me be nature to you
Intimately known yet strange
Living and moving deeply in me.

Let me be mother earth to you
Uniting and identifying
An abiding relationship

Let me be a flower for you
Making your life
Simple and colourful

Let me be your honey bee
Feeding on your nectar imbibing
On your sweetened sweetness

I long for your being
And mine to mingle
Be you and one with you

Let me be your lover my love
To yield and surrender
Possess and be possessed

Let me be your woman my love
Giving nourishment embracing protecting
And yet being myself a woman.

Let me be your partner to multiply
From her teeming depths we came
Surrounding you with your seeds

Dusty am I
Bones of your bone
You are supremely valuable my love

I long for your being
And mine to mingle
Be you and one with you.

 

Tomorrow Shall Be a Better Day

Tomorrow shall be a better day,
Get up and move,
Up to the mountains,
The sun is on its way,
Nature sings a new song,
For a new beginning.

Bearing roots downwards,
We shall walk and march,
Bearing fruits upwards,
We shall run and climb,
And not be weary.

God will give dew and rain,
The streams will flow,
The sun will shine,
And culture grow,
And culture grow.

The days come and go away,
Man comes and goes his way,
Nature thrives and rots away.

 

I Wish For You

We are each others mirror,
Reflecting what we are.
We are each others heralds,
Telling others about ourselves
Though each is found in his Otherness.

It has been a long time brother,
The moon is full,
We are alive.
It is beautiful isn't it?

Come…
Take my hand
Are you afraid?
Let's take a walk
Side by side
We'll take the broader familiar path.

Can you try?
Let's work it out
Side by side
And give God a chance
To help us look each other
Face to face.
I wish for you.

 

Treason

Age betrays
Daily living
Daily strivings
Covenant breaks
Life erupts.

We set
Grim tunes
Arrange grave rhythms.

Touching lives
Ignoring watering
Eyes
Inattentive to
Murmurings.

See obligations
Pierce poverty
Spilling heavily
Bitterly annoying.

We break dance
To the poverty
Poetry
Of our hearts
Harmony of interests
In our season of
Violence.

 

Your Laughter Is Yourself

We are being tapped
By irresponsible entities
You laugh cringing with pain
Laughter unites
Laughter affirms
Laughter enacts
Your laughter is you kindling
A fire, crude, rude, unwholesome.

Are you there?
Mother calls -
Death is a response
Father awaits -
Death is a price
To liberate and cleanse.

We've been sleeping with eyes unclosed
Seeing but not perceiving, afraid
To tear ourselves from a despondent state
Our sweat derived drained to out of us;
Dredging self - reliance out of our minds
Creating a sense of irresponsibility.
But the sun nor the rain
Can by-pass a town, not totally,
Always there is a glimmer, a drop,
Elevating her whom we are taught to love:
A world we must rediscover accept as ours.

It is not a promise, an objective thrown
To reflect ponder and accomplish.
It's time we awake from our reverie
Explore the dawn complete
What our fathers have begun
Finding what they have lost
Breeding something new, something true.

Drowning the composition of disease
War, ignorance and poverty.

A totality in involving oneself for selves
Not solely for the 'Lion cubs'
But with transmigratory powers
Breaking through barriers
To Afric's sons
We'll then sing with one tongue
A dialect, we'll understand
A continuity of sorts
For higher heights
And loftier aspirations.

 

Christmas

Pre-existent word uttered
Breaks upon the world.
A star flares soundlessly
Lighting the Way; explodes
Scattering shrapnels of life.
Becomes a child; life swelled,
Nature burst into song for joy.

Shalom!
To all men of good will.
A symphony of love
A child of Christmas.

Imagine!
A God carried in a womb
The sign Emmanuel
Child of peace ends strife
A humble truth on the plus side.

Imagine!
Love freely given
Buried in a tomb.
A man of sorrows
Wipes away sin.
Establishes a kingdom
Obligingly bringing joy
On each count.

The Other
Alone
She stands half naked
Day dreaming
About harvest
About marriage
(it's everyone's guess)

The wind stirs
The leaves rustle
Letting dew on her head
Making her shiver.
Birds chirping
Are they asking
Why,
Why is she so sad?

Simple creatures!
These are sad days
For our race
Closing!
Closing!
Who can monopolise the moon,
Who dares call the sun his?
They are there for the Common good.