LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 6 EPISODE 2 "DO"

POEMS READ AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 6 EPISODE 1 - KAINOS

MY PURPOSE

Everyday is a new beginning

Another opportunity to make things right

To again redeem some karma that has been talked about yet not visible by a listener

 Dreaming I search for my purpose

A star of many colours

Within one person

Born under a special moon

Even though I work hard to gain some experience, money or knowledge

I look within from time to time

To receive wisdom for my life and where it leads me

Alas my purpose

My purpose to succeed

 in hunger for what is true

To cry with happiness

To nuture every individual around me

To raise a child to heights unknown to it

To believe in trust

My purpose is

To be myself and live

OLUWEMIMO BONUOLA

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PRAISE IS WHAT I DO

When ink comes to words

And thoughts begin to pour

Rappers call it bars

And because of that they are referred to, as stars

An asterisk is a simple star with extra wings

When ink approaches paper, even the senses will sing

Praise is what I do

When I love being in my shoes

A man’s destiny isn’t his to choose

And fates often might make us subjects of abuse

But

Praise is what I do when,

Happiness becomes life’s excuse

When panting hearts slow down

And smiles replace frowns

And tightened gowns is adored by the town

And all we could do is wave

And revel in the stage which paved ways become

Praise is what I do

When I heard Alicia ask the question why we are here

Even when life appears not to be fair

And being overtaken a tired feet becomes aware

Praise is what I do,

Praise is what I do

When the scenery delights and I’m in awe of the view

Praise is what I do

When woes find ends without a part two

Praise is the bubble in my saliva

My silence when I’m most thankful

Praise is all the grace you can see

Even when it seems I’m lost at sea

Praise is the grace

When you wish to be in my shoes because you think I’m a disgrace

Praise is the grace in the measured paces of joy

When it sweeps in like the winds

And act like the suspense in the plot

As you may have discovered, life is but a play

And we are but casts

Scattered on the earth

By hands of mercy

Praise is like lace

It has holes

It’s not hard to see

Praise is like a dish

 I have come with the biggest bowl

And I have been served

In portions larger than I deserve

Praise is the experience

Like a sweet’s wrapper, memories of an enjoyable existence

Worthy of confessions

Without the strain of normal concessions

Praise is what I do

It is my current identity

The emblem I wear in my heart

Praise is what I do

When joy goes on break

It is my pledge to hope

Praise is the source

Heartbeat of the deed

Praise is grace you can trace

Praise is what I do

When I’m proud of my place in the array

Praise is the check for my realities

It is what I do when there’s a need to grip the whole of my sanity

Praise is the name of my sister

The one born, three months after easter

Praise is what is left, the scraps at the scene of a disaster

Praise is what I do, when doors open without my possession of the keys

Praise is what I do, which will never cease

Praise is the name of the future

The certainty even when we are not so sure

Praise is what lures me into strength

Praise is what I do to show my understanding

Praise is the grace which follows me

A warrior’s melting ice, the substance which makes him meek

Akeem Adetayo Oyalowo

January 4, 2015

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RHETORICS OF REDRESS

Rend the veil of silence
With the blunt bleating of the lamb,
The price is paid;
The slain are the victors.

Blood stamps
On our door posts,
Let death's angel pass;
We are reborn.

Let the rum red sea
To her forlorn bed return,
Baptize Pharaohs
Who won't let us free.

Freedom they say
Is a life sentence,
Yet give me cyanide
Than have me forever enslaved.

I stand between death and the seven pillars,
Passed the four walls, entered the circle
And through the blue door;
Headed for the kingdom in the sun.

Home of the damned,
The let downs
The hopelessly hopeless
And the not good enough.

Sing no more about the rain,
For losing all hope is freedom.
Let autumn afternoons
Melt December dreams.

Its all burned alive by time,
So we look forward to new hard times.
We are at our worst, yet we won't yield;
For we are too young to kneel .

What would Jesus do with a weapon?
Go-a-dogfight?
We are always losing blood;
Where there is fire, we will carry gasoline.

Love is red,
I plant funeral grade flowers,
Cast upon the waters your hate bread;
Beware the manifestations of anger.

My heart beats in breakdowns,
There's a new friend request,
Death is just a touch away;
Look up at the stars and you are gone.

I'm done,
Done smashing pumpkins,
Done taking care of the dead fish;
No! No more riding dead horses.

I'll fly again tonight,
I can see my house from here.
Beware they who never run but catch up,
Who said those born in the gutter must end up in the port?

SOONEST

NEW FLAME

Tongue of a dying flame

Flickering

Insistent tongue held on

Lapping the imagination of what used to be

On stunted wick

That flame held on weakly

Gathering what it could of the run out wax

At the close of day

The year’s curtain was drawn

Hemorrhaging to the end,

It did not exceed the day.

The year is referred to in a tense for the past

Her wax expended to just a blob

Drained by the heat of its activeness

That smoke of wick

Went with their hopes and dreams

Elements with which candles are made

In their minds at the start of year

Here another journey begins

Again the joys and mirth are heard

As the latest candle is lit

From the flame of the year that sank

When with the strength of its last flicker

It passed the light to this waxen lamp

Hope is the presence of a new candle

Its light they bear to see the path

As they scurry in search of the way

Leading to attainment of self esteem

Like lightings at night attracts moths in flight

Shall they attract others of their type

When their brightness shall lure all sight

If they achieve while the new flame lasts.

 CHUKWUEMEKA Jan 8th 2015

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BLEEDING HEART

How come I can't words to describe my feelings?
Why is there no colour to paint my sufferings?
A continuous churning deep down my tummy
Feeling like a feeling that needs attending

It feels like love and then hate
Or more like the love I never had
The room I'm in
Through which the door I never passed

I write to vomit this gloom inside of me
Yet I feel my mind moping
Moping at how ineffective my words
Had dispatched its sorrow

Tears shadowed by the falling rain
Making a perfect mix
For the faux called love
So it could toy on helpless hearts the more

Life would have been a lot easier absent love
Life without love would have been a rot
But why bring together
That which you would never accommodate

Why light a fire that was never made to burn
Why create a smile that would only make one cry
These are questions I never meant to ask
Naught for my pen's ineptitude to ferry my heart's twinge

Festal dance on broken bottles
Feigned happiness on broken hearts
How many hearts do I have to break?
To appease your thirsty tongue

How many hearts of mine do I sacrifice
To find a being in your name
A man has only so many hearts
To sacrifice in the name of love

I feel too pained to keep my pen upright
Not at the thought of a beloved
Cause there never was one
All were just ink to fuel the pen of this injured poet

 Weep but not with my eyes
 I feel my heart drowning
In the tears of my mind
Where the rain would never wash away its drib

These are words on these pages I engrave my heart
Blemished by the use of words
Chipping away edges of my feelings
Never making it whole and never leaving it alone

I lay down my pen now
With hopes I might pick it up again
With another tear in my mind
I write the words of my bleeding heart.

HABEEB

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KAINOS- THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

The hunt for red October. 

 The search for the new.      

 The novel; the super nova.                   

What the Greeks called kainos.             

 The news is not new.         

By the time it comes out in the news papers so called, it is old.

 Old like an Oldsmobile. 

Then breaking news.           

And even that after it is broken like kola nut

 Washed down with Chelsea, poured out in libation to ancient gods

It immediately ceases to be new.

Like the old year subsumed into the new and asking the old question.     

What is new?             

 Why will things change because the dates on the calendar  changed?       

 Or the names on the ballot boxes?               

 On the book covers? 

 On the records- Hansard of legislative deliberation?       

 On the covers of music beats or downloads

When the sources are the same and the fashions derived? 

The names change but the factors, factotums and factories are the same.     

Sweat shops in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh.       

Different names.    Same workers.         

Different deals depending on quality controls.     

Nothing new.        Same difference whatever that means.           

Searching for red October- Hunting for the new.       

New deal.   New way.           

New wave.     New approaches to old situations.               

Looking for poema- the new creation.             

A new species of being that never existed before.         

New words.    New thoughts.             

New goals.     New hopes, aspirations and resolutions.     

New information .New processes of thought and ways and means.         

Ways of being.                 

If at last we stay with the old and decrepit we end up as Einstein's madmen

ANDREW WHYTE

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A WRONG PATH LEADS NORTH

If you found me up north

Do kindly bring me home

For i must have lost my way

In the gloomy ambience of social malady.

Send me back to the west

Where i shall put my burden to rest

Face hunger than face a meal in a bomb vest.

If you found me up there

Where i have learnt to grow in fear

And the loss of a limb does not bring me to despair,

Do carry me on your shoulder,

Or place me in the silence of a boulder

To shield me from the cry of a toddler.

Yet you call me al-majiri

For I firmly stretch out a bowl

To be filled with alms

Or nourish from the crumbs that leave your palms.

I run after you at daylight

with hands stretched to ease my plight,

I welcome you with songs strange to your ears

The melody of which pricks my little mind.

Now that death meant nothing

But like the passing wind along the Dala hill

Settling on the furs of grazing animals

While sniffing the stench of human carcasses.

We watch the north bleed

From the harmful grenade of greed.

A wrong path leads north

Do bring me safely to port

let me set sail on the sea of human dignity

Or die silently in the shivering face of cold

Lest i be made a tool for your destruction,

With my bowl calling for your coin

I will gladly accept whatever comes from your loin.

(C) Ayinla Muyideen Adeleke 2014

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THE QUEST

The sun sets slowly on the horizon

Thousands of Birds fly to the East

Others search for the path to Albion

Where Beauty still lives with the Beast

Turning the pages of Life's album

We see faces of unwelcome guests

Trepidation fills our kingdom

Where lays our hope? South or West?

When our fingerprints are born and worn

Would the Dove win the quest?

Until the silver veil of the future is torn

Our hearts quiver within our chests

As the sun rises slowly at dawn

The Eagle no longer rests 

Grasshoppers prepare for the storm

The quest for the rock’s vest    

Erhio January 2015

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TO BECOME NEW

The river is dry

This emptiness!

Devoid of life

Filled with silent longing

As ignorance shelters the wisdom within

At the first light of a new era

The past era is written

Indelibly engraved in eternity

In whose shadows will the sun be?

In the city of light

Where the sun is but a shadow

My journey’s route

Too many roads I choose

None to self-discovery

To fill this void

And awaken the yearning

To become new

Ifeanyi Okwosha                      January 2015