Masquerade

When I make my river sacrifices
up on the hill with rotted fruits 
headed home
They feel the heat they feel reality distort

and know 

it's an astral world, an ethereal world firstly 
they see a specter, a tear, a vortex of time 
a link between the living and the dead
a masquerade 

In the city with sunglasses and earrings

at home I swim with palm fronds in my mouth

and become a crocodile

in the city I'm quite docile, 

at home, I break white kolanut on my past grave 

for I dare not know it, dare not remember

They can't believe it, but they could be it
I am Igbo, a child of the womb, blood afire 

We are not empty sprawlers, We are gods, concerned about our apotheosis
knowing we are going to be ancestors

masquerades

we eat astral fish, meat, roasted yam and oil 
when dead relatives says thank you
to provided peace, serenity to the overpsyche
money in it's true enjoyment 

conquer demons, chart new course, true living 
from reading poems and river sacrifices

become men, become masquerades

We turn to masquerades, the gash in reality
the bridge between this world and the other
the living and the dead
we say prepare your way, make sacrifice
live right and bolster your apotheosis 
for one day, you too must return as ancestor 
Read and become that money according to Rumi

Reattain your preciousness, masquerade 

buoy, flail and enjoy the truest of life atop

e5