The Smell of Exile

By Padmore Enyonam Agbemabiese

The Smell of Exile is a collection of poems that speaks about complex and diverse human experiences. They are simple stories about people, their hopes, dreams, and their indomitable spirit that clings to something mystical as they struggle to survive in a foreign culture. To the first time reader, it outlines and examines the cultural and historical effects of human-nature disconnection, the severance of an African poet from his time-honored customs and traditions of Africa, and his being caught in the rituals of the new world. But, the feeling of separation from a birthplace is one of the largest and greatest universal sources of nostalgic feelings, and of suffering of which Padmore Agbemabiese has been inspired to talk about in various styles and art forms. Tales narrated by the poems are sensitive and capture the imagination in order to provide the reader with an escape or a journey into the realm of the mystical, supernatural, and esoteric world of that human tragedy, loss of identity. In the poem, One Gentle Night, Padmore Agbemabiese brings us this feeling of loss:

one gentle night
I saw the moonlight coming out in the dark
and remembered the crickets at home

soon
I cuddled my soul with joy at the moon
but the crickets did not return my song

gush
I raised my head and looked again
it was the floodlights from the street corner

slowly
and sorrowfully I lowered my head and thought of my far-away home

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 10, 2008
• ISBN: 9781469115221

Book preview

One Gentle Night

one gentle night

I saw the moonlight coming out in the dark

and remembered the crickets at home

soon

I cuddled my soul with joy at the moon

but the crickets did not return my song

gush

I raised my head and looked again

it was the floodlights from the street corner

slowly

and sorrowfully I lowered my head

and thought of my far-away home

After You Were gone

after you were gone

your presence manacled my soul and lingered

long on the streets of my conscience

caught on desolate fields of loneliness

silence and tears remembered

the beauty you created

your absence was felt on the breast

of memory and the air I breathed

jammed at its doorways

not long

death looked me in the face

and my eyes wept for your return

in the hearth of desires

your enchantment remained a lingering shadow

in every whisper on every steep slope of hope

and now

every lip prays for the resurrection of our souls

and at the village