A Fire in My Head Read online

  Also by Ben Okri

  FICTION

  Flowers and Shadows

  The Landscapes Within

  Incidents at the Shrine

  Stars of the New Curfew

  The Famished Road

  Songs of Enchantment

  Astonishing the Gods

  Dangerous Love

  Infinite Riches

  In Arcadia

  Starbook

  The Comic Destiny (previously Tales of Freedom)

  The Age of Magic

  The Magic Lamp

  The Freedom Artist

  Prayer for the Living

  ESSAYS

  Birds of Heaven

  A Way of Being Free

  The Mystery Feast

  A Time for New Dreams

  POETRY

  An African Elegy

  Mental Fight

  Wild

  Rise Like Lions (Anthology)

  PLAYS

  The Outsider

  A FIRE IN MY HEAD

  Ben Okri

  AN APOLLO BOOK

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2021 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Ben Okri, 2021

  The moral right of Ben Okri to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781800243002

  ISBN (E): 9781800242999

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  Material in this collection has previously appeared as follows:

  ‘Finding the Present’ was featured in Eli Strik’s exhibition, ‘In Search of the Present’, at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA) in Finland in 2016. ‘A Shakespeare Portrait’ was first published in the Financial Times in 2014. ‘Notre-Dame is Telling Us Something’ was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 26 April, 2019. ‘A New Dream of Politics’ was published in the Guardian on 12 October, 2015. ‘closed, still open’ was read by Ben Okri and filmed for the Coronet Theatre on 9 April, 2020. ‘The Unknown Hour’ was published in the New Statesman on 16 December, 2017. ‘everest’ was read aloud by Ben Fogle when he climbed Everest in July 2018, and featured in Ben Fogle’s book, Up: My Life’s Journey to the Top of Everest (2018). ‘convergence’ was read at the Zamyn festival at Tate Modern in 2013. ‘Obama’ was published in the Guardian on 19 January, 2017. ‘a broken song’ appeared in the Guardian on 21 October 1995 under the title ‘For Ken Saro-Wiwa’. ‘The Insider’ was made into a short film of the same title by Mitra Tabrizian in 2018. ‘Amnesty at Forty’ was published in Amnesty global magazine in 2001. ‘history of new forms’ was printed in David Hammons: Give me a moment (2016) which accompanied the exhibition of the same name. ‘revelations of saint time’ featured on the wall of Grace Wells Bonner’s exhibition, ‘A Time For New Dreams’, at the Serpentine Gallery in Spring 2019. ‘cosmosis’ was recorded as a song by Tony Allen, Remi Kabaka, and Damon Albarn in 2020. ‘mother dance’, ‘dance of the new born’, and ‘ballet of the unseen’ accompanied a dance-drama choreographed by Charlotte Jarvis at Dance Base as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2019. ‘shaved head poem’ was published in Adda, the Commonwealth magazine on 18 June, 2020. ‘Diallo’s Testament’ was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in 2013. ‘invocation for the shrine 4’ was featured on the wall of Grace Wells Bonner’s exhibition, ‘A Time For New Dreams’, at the Serpentine Gallery in 2019. ‘Grenfell Tower, June 2017’ was published in the Financial Times on 23 June, 2017.

  I went out to the hazel wood,

  because a fire was in my head.

  W. B. Yeats

  CONTENTS

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Unknown Hour

  Finding the Present

  slept badly

  liberty

  A Shakespeare Portrait

  Notre-Dame is Telling Us Something

  A New Dream of Politics

  closed, still open

  The Unknown Hour

  Convergence

  lines on a drawing

  outside the wedding

  everest

  hamlet

  a little song

  in a temple in seoul

  convergence

  Obama

  Midday

  africa is a reality not seen

  a broken song

  decolonisation

  on race

  The Insider

  manetho’s books

  siwah

  boko haram

  Amnesty at Forty

  revolution

  Dusk

  a history of new forms

  revelations of saint time

  cosmosis

  mother dance

  for mirabella

  dance of the new born

  ballet of the unseen

  shaved head poem

  Invocation Hour

  the angle

  based on a translation

  Diallo’s Testament

  the rohingyas

  breathing the light

  invocation for the shrine 4

  lines towards a love poem

  Grenfell Tower, June 2017

  walk in a moonlight wonder

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Read slowly

  Unknown Hour

  FINDING THE PRESENT

  An extract

  The present moment began with fire

  And still it burns; it began with water,

  And still they drown on the margins of Europe.

  It began with air – see how they flee, see

  How the bombs fall on houses made of sand,

  Dreams made of flesh, the blind drones

  Of remote war. But it began with earth,

  Where all destinies are one, but many perish

  For want of justice or soap or flowers

  Instead of fears. Our age is confused:

  The world runs ahead while humanity

  Falls behind, trampled on by juggernauts

  Whose names are the fearsome powers.

  Across borders and nations, a new web

  Of chains within the greatest horizons

  The world has ever known. Water itself

  Resists oppression. Press her down too much

  And she erupts with unexpected force

  Somewhere else. We are all on a great ship

  That’s lost its balance, lost its way,

  And a huge storm’s gathering beyond

  The iron veil of our hearts. Maybe

  It’s a storm of revelation. Maybe it’s a storm

  Of truth, of which art’s the unknown magus.

  The age is changing. The present moment

  Is itself constantly revealing. Everything

  We see is the mask of time

  Concealing its features.

  Come with me through the mask,

  Into rites of vision and truth.

  Come with me to the blue garden.

  New time is being made here from

 
The wandering sleep of dreamers.

  Shadows on the cave walls walk to and fro.

  Shadows on the city walls come and go.

  Shadows in the garden

  Shadows in the garden.

  Shadows in the

  Shadows.

  SLEPT BADLY

  a love poem

  slept badly.

  worked all morning.

  i love the view from your window:

  jewels scattered in the night.

  i want to see the view from your heart.

  magic connections will abound.

  high force set in motion.

  in spite of what you think.

  high force set in motion,

  connecting above and below.

  above in the unseen.

  below in the unknown.

  i drift in and out of your essence.

  reading the runes of your soul.

  different inside from outside.

  learning a new language

  of your faraway breathing.

  destiny changes with those secret lines

  running through all the webs

  far beyond the sphere of time.

  there the ones who see beyond

  our realm see when the true

  genesis of touch bears

  astounding fruit.

  o how to be ready.

  when the dove hovers over

  unwilling mind

  must you yield up the millennial

  ideas of sacrifice.

  they know there’s no

  sacrifice where there’s love.

  just a giving and an altar-offering

  without a name, without

  measure. who can measure

  the view from your heart?

  i sit at its window

  and the enigma

  of the wild twilight city

  makes sense to me

  as the movement of the wind

  does over the face of the sea.

  watch the links multiply,

  till a flower is formed.

  can you birth a flower?

  can you give birth

  to the new self that’s forming

  from the enigma,

  a clear form mysterious

  to behold, beautiful

  as the dawn

  over those blue mountains?

  what is magic?

  touching, and giving birth to worlds.

  dreaming, and for the real to be in doubt.

  loving, and being calm,

  so that all becomes clear

  like an angel’s evanescent form.

  slept badly.

  worked all morning.

  all i have is a certain gaze of yours.

  and the way when leaving

  you take all of you with you.

  and me at the window,

  dreaming.

  i want to see the view

  from your heart.

  LIBERTY

  those wings with which

  we soar beyond

  the mesh of time;

  light that blazes

  through the darkened

  realm of power;

  that impulse to tear down

  shackles of the soul

  bolted there to make us

  bend to fear and control.

  prometheus’s first cry

  and his enduring gift.

  meaning of myth

  when decoded

  as fire and light.

  prima materia that changes

  black earth of suffering

  into the red dragon

  of bold overcoming.

  last flame of a defeated

  people, first rekindler

  of their resurrection;

  yellow path up

  to the crowned mountain,

  where destiny, mind-forged,

  becomes the green ladder

  to the lanterned heavens.

  secret song of flowers,

  and beauty’s torch.

  my father’s injunction,

  and my mother’s revelation.

  A SHAKESPEARE PORTRAIT

  You whose mind awakens

  Endless generations

  Why is your true face so unknown,

  And unknowable?

  As if you wished to conceal

  Your form that you may reveal

  That which flows from your soul

  To ours, through the inconstancy

  Of words, which bring forth

  From changing times

  Immortal truths, so that justice,

  In secret, may prevail.

  A balancing hand runs

  Through civilisations.

  Something mysterious

  Ebbs and flows in the sea

  Of lives. You show the grace

  Of the sea in your hidden face;

  But with your dreams

  We all stand as one dreamer

  In the tempest and the dust.

  To know your work

  Is not to guess your face;

  To see your face is not

  To imagine your work.

  Your work is a world,

  Your face a mask

  Behind which the unknown

  Master smiles.

  NOTRE-DAME IS TELLING US SOMETHING

  Notre-Dame’s telling us something.

  How the orioles weep.

  Something in our soul is burning.

  Those alchemical flames the flesh

  Of our mother is devouring.

  Turbulence in the streets;

  Rotating anger in the air.

  Division across the waters;

  Swans of peace live in fear.

  Above, the earth dwindles

  As mercury consumes the teeth

  Of the young and chemicals

  Plough the guts of children

  Before seeds of death are planted.

  No prayers anywhere.

  Angels fall like tears;

  Winding stairs lead nowhere.

  And in Europe the bells are ringing

  A dark angelus for faith gone

  Underground. A dark mass of unbelief

  Stalks the stables and the high tables.

  Notre-Dame’s telling us something

  About the wisdom beyond grief.

  We fight over cabbages while

  Our spirit perishes in open view.

  In alchemy it’s when things burn

  That they’re made true and new.

  Orioles are weeping

  For the dwindling of our souls

  And the smallness of the goals

  That obscure cathedrals

  And good laws and progress

  We’ve made from wars

  To civil liberties, from the comfort

  Of our parish minds to the generosity

  Of our linked hands.

  O the orioles are weeping

  For the wars that will be fought

  Because of the simple things not taught

  Like the underlying unity

  And our fundamental trinity

  And how when the way is lost

  Good things perish

  And we will never know the cost.

  But Notre-Dame is telling us something

  In its flames and its fallen spire.

  We’ve been sinking lower,

  Been mesmerised by lies,

  Destroying truth,

  Instead of rising higher.

  Everything that wrenches our hearts

  Like signs written in the sky

  With invisible hands

  Is an inscription to our times

  We should read with wise eyes.

  Our souls are parched,

  Our hearts grow cold.

  The young are climate-crisis fighting

  Or are in quiet despair perishing

  While on the island empire-nostalgia

  Secretly and not so secretly obsesses the old.

  Ou
r politics keep looking back

  To something that never was or has gone

  Rather than facing the present

  Like the dawn’s nightingale song

  Or the dew we all lack.

  Notre-Dame is saying something

  About the holes into which we’re falling

  Seeking power seeking power

  Losing meaning falling tower.

  The spire touching the sky

  Inclined our eyes up high,

  Led us upward to our best selves.

  Maybe in these fallen times

  While dim bells across Europe chime

  That broken spire will re-unite our hearts

  Beyond the greed of our diverging ways

  Back to pilgrim roads, singing days.

  They are singing Ave Marias

  Outside flaming Notre-Dame.

  And across the world we perhaps

  Remember how fine we can be

  In the symphony of our deeds

  And the harmony of our needs.

  For whether it be the Buddhas

  Of Bamiyan or Grenfell’s grey cladding

  Or that home of alchemy and grace

  In Paris burning, it’s us who burn too,

  And the loss is the unborn child’s,

  The beggar in Timbuktu.

  All culture’s shared

  Beneath the realm

  Of sleep and of awakening.

  Notre Dame is thundering something.

  Awake, O man, awake.

  Awake, woman, awake.

  The flames are spreading in our sleep.

  Flames of the earth.

  Flames of future.

  Sky-flames

  Arctic-flames.

  Truth-flames.

  Orioles are weeping.

  Bells are ringing.

  Why are you still sleeping?

  A NEW DREAM OF POLITICS

  They say there is only one way for politics:

  That it looks with cold eyes at the hard world

  And shapes it with a ruler’s edge,

  Measuring what is possible against

  Acclaim, support, and votes.

  They say there is only one way to dream

  For the people, to give them not what they need

  But food for their fears.

  We measure the deeds of politicians

  By their time in power.

  But in wiser times they had another way.

  They measured greatness by the gold

  Of contentment, by the enduring arts,

  The laughter at the hearths,

  The length of silence when the bards

  Tell of what was done by those who