Poetry's Ambassador

He dips his brush
Into a palette of luminescence
And paints shades
You can only feel but never see
His images – sometimes diaphanous
Sometimes vibrant
Are sewn together
And spun into a web
Of colourful and melodic vibration
His words curl and dance about
On quivering beams of light
Expression is born out of wordlessness
And music is born out of silence
The concrete melts into the abstract
And the tangible becomes intangible
He challenges the spirit, revivifies
And blows into it
A fresh breath of consciousness
The gentle, yet compelling wind
That blows across the landscape
Carries with it
A freshness
From the innermost reaches of a world outside ours
He does indeed astonish the Gods
Here is a man who –
Whether he writes in broken lines
Or prose –
Is always a poet


Note: My responses to Ben Okri - 'Astonishing the Gods', 'Famished Road' and 'An African Elegy'