Oke’s Musings: Poetry, People and Places

Tag: harmattan

  • Harmattan Has Come!

    Harmattan arrived grandly With the smell of burning grass, Dry nostrils and painted faces Harmattan made land arid So mud is now waterproof, And men without a sense of smell The thick fog of smoke and dust Greet the land that once knew rain Speak of her cold art: dusty faces & feet

  • Swift Breezes

    Swift breezes welcome me to my hometown My mind is at rest, for the love felt around Palm trees are sentries, termites their soldiers Cherries and mangoes throw fruits, sweet as sugar Swift breezes blow through our quiet neighbourhood I stand under tree shades, with my hands raised When tree leaves struggle all about breezy…

  • February Harmattan

    Harbinger of Sahara, king of the queer dust I hail you! Your entourage of heavy sand storms and dunes Display there works of art on our glass windows and faces You give us very strange attires, ghostly ones We wonder, we make guesses of why you love the dust, Why you paint all; flowers, careless…

  • Haiku of the Harmattan

    Green things are brown Harmattan made them so Even trees turn mad dancers

  • Harmattan winds

    Harmattans graceful blankets slowly descend, Blowing dry brown dust upon our hamlet, On misty mornings and smoky evenings

  • Night before Christmas

    It was the night before Christmas, Not a thing was heard or seen at first For the cold night was at its worst But three woodcutters walked through the forest Marching joyfully towards home It was cold, terribly cold that no one could make sense of it So the woodcutters held their lamps close to…

  • December Tides

    1 Tasty for the spoils of the dry month, we are Dry air, dry waterhole, dry lips, dry paper Moisture lost to the heat of the traveling sun But our feet has got many options, wait or run And today the breeze drives the wind to us We savor, we enjoy, to you emissary we…

  • By the Window side on the Harmattan

    Once by the window side One can see the greenfields The tulips and the sweet smelling Rose And the little spider crawling about in her net The golden sun shines forth Bringing her warmth through the window And the birds twitter on the tree Which live near the windowside Sometimes squirrels come bounding in Throwing…

  • Kpe’re in the Harmattan

    Now real love feels like Standing on a rocky land Surrounded by bamboo trees On a very hot sunny day By the side of a flowing stream Filled with children playing In the coldness of the waters And watching the hovering hawks Circle the area like a scout As each burst of Heavenly air Shakes…

  • Harmattan

    The days are made beautiful with your glorious appearance But when the sun rises up the clouds, the warmth is taken And for men, faces become a caricature of disgust upon the mirror In the morning even before the Suns rising The firmament and the pathways is filled with mists The track to the stream…

  • Cold Harmattan

    If there comes a knock on the door Don’t be in a hurry to answer For there goes a strong wind Rushing about the dry cloud A very strange bust of air Roaming the streets, the fields Pulling leaves, and sand along Dancing on the pathway leading to the hamlet Painting faces with all white…

  • Childhood Harmattan

    I wonder why I miss the harmattan Why it is yet to come Why it stays in his cloak Shy and letting the rain bully him I miss the smell of dust cakes And our delay in burning the grasses So I can see the fumes dance to meet the sky And why we ‘stay’…