a kind of poem.

...there she was in all her splendor,

as exquisite as ever,

her body against the evening sky left me breathless,

her stance was a promise of sturdiness and comfort,

so full of strength and yet sleek in her appearance,

there i was wishing she was mine to take,

wishing she and i,history we have to make
i walked up to her as bedazzled as ever,

in a trance-like state oblivious of other existence,

like a ferric material in a magnetic field,

i was drawn to her, my body in a state of hyperdynamism,

inexplicable palpitations,

blood coursing through twice as fast,

my breath coming in a handful of gasps,

the closer i got the weaker i felt,

like the sun she was,and i a rock,

the closer i got like lava i melt
there she was her body a few inches from mine,

the smell of her wafting through the evening air,

down my nasal faculties,causing a neural uproar,

i stood transfixed,wanting to touch her but undecided how to,

wanting to be just perfect,never too rough and never too gentle,

her body was as smooth as glassware,

as shiny as a well polished brassware,

an epitome of beauty,a real show of craftmanship,

in unspoken words i expressed my love for her,

hoping and praying that she feels the same,

no one else but love to blame,

like a lion in a cage she has me tamed
unexplored and undiscovered she was,

all newness and as virgin as ever,

each part of her a promise of a taste of heaven,

the thought of her being mine welled me with pride,

like a groom,smiling at his bride,

the whole of me i give to her,

every molecule and every atom,

oh!how much i love you my rolls royce phantom.

The essential Whitfield ointment

The Essential Whitfield Ointment
A review of This Christmas
Starring Idris Elba, Chris Brown, Columbus Short, Regina King
A film about the Whitfields, a Black family at Christmas. That should suffice as a summary, but it hardly does. Perhaps because it lacks the simulated emotions inputted into this movie. Although truth be told, this film does not offer any new perspective to the ‘black challenges’, but it however engages the viewer’s few hours. Without offering new insights, it’s not enough to say that it does bring much to the table. The scenario is pretty much cliché: a whirlpool of problems tucked under armpits of a seemingly faultless family.
It’s Christmas and everyone is home. Everyone being facets that cater for the varying conditions that burden the black man, as it were. A mother of six who isn’t over the father of her children; a cuckolded wife who bears the brunt of others without looking out for herself; a gambling son; an interracially-married brother in denial; a well-to-do female that relies on a vibrator for satisfaction, etc. Different scenarios that can be trashed in their own rights merged into a big whole flick.
This entertainment flick, not devoid of black anecdotes and humor, is suffused with borderline performance from every member of the cast to make a theater money maker. This film is sure not to cart away awards, aside Black film awards. But whatever it lacks in new perspective is made up for by the super, super soundtracks. These apt songs would make the day of a soul-lover. And Chris Brown wasn’t bad with his renditions.
A refreshing movie in all.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Pride and Glory
Starring Collin Farell, Edward Norton
Duration: 2hr 10 min
Genre: Crime /Drama
I found the title quite deceptive and in retrospect, quite apt. I had seen a film titled Pride (starring Terrence Howard) and another titled Glory (Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington) and one thing could be said about these films. Beyond having a substantial Black cast, they appealed to the black experience.
Pride and Glory however doesn’t. At least not in a frank manner, I mean. It deals with something more encompassing. And by virtue of dealing with a global (mis)deed, it appeals to the human experience.
Corruption especially within Law enforcement, we can safely assume from the amount of Hollywood movies that theme on it, is not a strictly African problem. I have seen L.A cop, Black Dahlia, to mention a few and all these films point out the savagery human is capable of especially once placed in an exalted position.
Only yesterday I was having a conversation about a review of The Known World by Edward P. Jones in Farafina Magazine. And this review was contemptuous in its dealings with P. Jones’s version of slavery amongst the same race; amongst blacks that is. I not only found it repugnant and but shallow. The Pulitzer winner was ascribing a universal rather than racial fault to slavery. He meant that if a ‘role swap’ occurs and blacks happened to be on the other side of the Atlantic, on the side of civilization, they probably would perpetrate even worse deeds. And it’s true.
Let’s take corruption in Nigeria for instance. Roger (20 naira) is a mandatory fee all transporters most pay in Lagos. How about illegal road blocks, civilian harassment in all forms of display and all other acts of corruption law enforcement agencies indulge in? Perhaps this trivializes the more extreme forms patronized by cops in the movie Pride and Glory, but it also vitalizes the essence of Jones’s theme that slavery is not a problem of humans and not of race
A family of cops—father, two sons and a son-in-law—are in the nexus of the film reel. Sons look up father as some sort of idol cop, and often take to his counsel. Ray Tienery(Edward Norton) has a previous history of listening to his father, which led the collapse of his marriage. And now, his brother’s precinct is blacklisted on account of corruption. And there is evidence of his brother’s laxity, consequence of his wife’s cancer, and the man-in-charge (son-in –law/Collin Farell) as linchpins of the ‘bad cop racket’ perpetrating evils such as bribery, drug-dealing, armed robbery, extensively.
Ray is at the crossroads again, the only man who can pin his sister’s husband to the crime. His father has an idea on how to fix this amicably and salvage the family. But Ray chose to be upright this time; he decides to do what is right. It might not be gainsaying that Justice was not served especially in the manner of the son-in-law’s death. He subjected himself to jungle justice. He wasn’t condemned in the confines of the law to which he had deterred. But rather he suffered within the confines of humanity. In the confines of the maxim, man shall die by what he lives.

We can do better than this!

Obsessed
Actors: Idris Elba, Beyonce Knowles, Ali Larter
The most remarkable attribute of this movie is its outstanding picture quality and when you check the name on the back—Rain Forest Films, the motion picture company behind Motives—one would be less surprised.
In a similar vein, one could compare this film to Motives; they both theme on the trial of relationships. The cameras rolled in on Deker Charles, ably played by black hunk, Idris Elba, is an executive vice president of a financial firm and his wife, Beyonce, and their son,Kyle, moving into their new house and their gestures suggests a young rich family.
Another female character is introduced: Lisa, who worked as a temporary secretary to Derek. She plays a pivotal role in the denouement of the plot. This delusional woman fell in love with Derek and tried inadvertently to start an affair to no avail. She had no choice but to resort to ideas from her crazy brains and consequently, Derek marriage and family is put through the test of infidelity and trust by her actions.
This film could have easily passed as a Nollywood flick save the quality of the picture and appropriate directing. The actors and actresses were however remarkable and the sound tracks were apt. One can’t stray too much from the reason; Beyonce’s signature vocals.
This is not a movie I would want to watch again perhaps because the plot is not elaborate and might not necessary pass through what would call the African kaleidoscope. It’s mostly foreign and tends towards the realms of artificial.

The Audacity of Pain: A review

I am Memory
Author: Jumoke Verissimo
Genre: Poetry
Pages: 56
ISBN No: 978-978-088-065-1
Personally, I don’t like reviews. I think they are high-opinionated, utterly sentimental and directly related to book sales. But often I ask myself if sentiments can be distilled completely from a work of art. Can sentiment, the gnawing emotion that wills pen to paper and occasions the resultant work, be separated from Art? Absolutely not. So we can safely conclude that Sentiment is the artery through which Art in itself is fed and one is tempted to end it there.
In the fashion of American writer, Richard Matheson’s novel recently made into movie, I Am Legend, Ms. Verissimo substantiates her claim to her chosen genre, poetry, with her first collection of poems, I Am Memory. Erstwhile Jumoke Verissimo has been heard and read both as a performance poet and in literary journals respectively and I must say, her collection is anticipated and timely.
I noticed the book featured about thirteen poems, divided into four memory lanes after I got passed the rather lengthy acknowledgments. Then I launched into the first of her offerings which perhaps is her most outstanding poem, Sequence (of desire).
This love poem is nothing like the Shakespearian sonnets, or Robert Frost’s verses, its much bolder, penned specifically for performance. The lyricism is quite remarkable and works in tandem with the eloquent string of emotions that built into a robust narrative on one of the most unifying themes in the universe. Recently I was privileged to watch a performance and I was struck with awe.
As a poet, Ms Verissimo is versatile as well as judicious in her use of literary mechanics to furnish poems with a fluid progression. Like the Free Verse poet she is, her style borders more on internal rhythm than rhyme and stanzas, often uneven, do not mince or maneuver words, rather it hits the proverbial nail on the head. Generously, she coins words with pun intended. Words such as Shell-ers, aba-shed are used to further buttress and delineate her emotions, setting them as roots and templates for revisiting issues that bulked most of her themes. Truly, an African poet can’t be without activism.
I am memory revisits past issues swept under the carpet of history, gnaws old scars and initiate new tears and perspective to the several woes that have betide the Nigerian state. So often, the poet assumes an angry tone and one could envision the pains the poet had sifted into verses. Her poems tackled themes like tyranny and dictatorship, hunger and famine, unsolved murders of politicians, unjust killings, leaving out only HIV/AIDS to have become a complete personal reproach on African sensibilities.
Ms Verissimo has penned a book of nostalgic history. She has collected poems that truly reflect the reactions of a bona fide Nigerian to the turbulence and tribulation the nation has faced for ages. This collection is a bold stance of pain and other emotions, filtering through the pores of gross indifference and achieving a communal cry of protest.
With this collection, Ms Verissimo asserts and secures herself a seat on the table of the new Nigerian contemporary poets, the likes of Ifowodo Ogaga, Chiedu Ezeanah, Lola Shoneyin, Tade Ipadeola, Niran okewole etc. No doubt she would be heard from for a while.