Abiku

Abiku - written by Wole Soyinka In vain your bangles cast Charmed circles at my feet I am Abiku, calling for the first And repeated time. Must I weep for goats and cowries For palm oil and sprinkled ask? Yams do not sprout amulets To earth Abiku's limbs. So when the snail is burnt in his shell, Whet the heated fragment, brand me Deeply on the breast - you must know him When Abiku calls again. I am the squirrel teeth, cracked The riddle of the palm; remember This, and dig me deeper still into The god's swollen foot. Once and the repeated time, ageless Though I puke, and when you pour Libations, each finger points me near The way I came, where The ground is wet with mourning White dew suckles flesh-birds Evening befriends the spider, trapping Flies in wine-froth; Night, and Abiku sucks the oil From lamps. Mothers! I'll be the Suppliant snake coiled on the doorstep Yours the killing cry. The ripest fruit was saddest Where I crept, the warmth was cloying. In silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping Mounds from the yolk.  Analysis In the poem Abiku, the poet personifies Abiku as himself, the spiritual problem child who would always come back to torment his mother, the Nigerian government. Soyinka in that poem made it clear that he would always be around to criticize the Nigerian government and since Abiku he has been around to voice out his opinion on national issues, to engage those who want to ruin the country in war of words and much more.