Friday, 20 November 2015

POEMS READ AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 6 EPISODE 11 "SO"

MAY BE – poem of the month
Sometimes we fail
And atimes we derail
From trying to know who we are
And how to best fit
Or get across life's pit.

Our actions and inactions
Pull from within
To question who we truely are
And why we have been dancing
To the silence of the world.
May be we shouldn't have been human.

Our heads keep reeling
Ransacking the core of our being
While we pour out the trashes in the bin,
Sift the good from the bad
Live to be happy or sad.
Maybe I should have been a woman.

Maybe I should have been
Like my friend who lived there
While I am still here
Living in disdain and fear.
I could have done what he did
Achieve his feat and plant my seeds
Destroy the thorns and weeds
That have made a companion of me.

Maybe I should have worked more
Do what everyone has been doing
Be smart enough to break a store
Leave behind morality for immoral
And blinded my thought to this path that I thread

Maybe I should have been quiet
To the follies dumped by my door
And the brutalities that lies ashore
While I still strive to find a meaning
To what best I can become.

Maybe i should have tasted the noodles of lies
And deceitfully cremated the limbs of truth
Pretend to be like just everyone else
While I silently fade from within
And feed on chunks of sin.

Maybe I should have been dead
Than being alive
To cherish what living is.
Maybe I should have resigned my faith
Instead of helplessly holding on
While I become a stranger to myself.

Maybe
Maybe
And maybe if this never crossed my mind
These words would never have taken form
Maybe I was right
For drinking of this norm
And bathing hopefully in this storm
Maybe it shouldn't have been maybe
But to move on that I tried after all

Maybe the sun doth cries
When night takes his place
And the stars takes over
And lightens up the troubled night.
Maybe in my wrong
I was right after all.


Ayinla Muyideen Adeleke
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THROUGH THE BACK DOOR -(worthy of mention)

... for Mansir, whose identity was mistaken...

They will let you out
Through a dark corner,
After putting you in spaces
You do not habit,
Spaces you would never habit.
They will let you out
Mansir;
Into a virtual space far from home.

They will let you out
Into a world of questions
And like an equation
The world will ask you D-y?
It's a stupid world created by a genius called god.
The dumb population wielding smartphones
Will ask why you painted your nails,
Why you wore Barbies' clothes,
Yet come with aa factory fitted penis.

They will profer exorcism,
From the spirits,
The bad spirits that inhabit you.
They want to rid you of spirits aversed to conformist ideas,
Spirits that cause you to crave a walk off the tappered edge of the flat earth;
Yes, your earth is flat.
They will let you out
Mansir,
Into a world without pencils to line your eyes;
They don't want you to see ghosts.

They will let you out
Into darkness,
Into a rigid world of roles and rules,
A world where dogs have more rights than men,
Where god has made it all and there is no room for creativity.
They will let you out
Mansir;
And no one will appologise.

They will let you out
Set you forth before dawn,
When the day is neither black nor white;
Perhaps maybe when the skies are grey.
They will lead you through a corridor in the courts,
After the judge has found in you no flaw.
They's walk you through the blue door,
Disappointed that they cannot sate the mob's thirst for blood anymore.
They will let you out
Mansir,
They will;
But only through the back door.
SOONEST
///////////////////////////////

MAKE UP YOUR MIND PEOPLE!

The Antelopes and the Goats voted for continuity
But the Tigers, Cheaters and Camels wanted change
Change has not fostered unity
Which isn't in any way strange

When sharks begin to marginalize other fish
Is it time to seperate the waters?
To give them the spoon and keep the dish
Or let sons live without daughters?

The Moon slowly turns red
The Sun covers her head
Our Houses are not equipped
Our Scales have been tipped
But while our Waters rage
The Rock leaves the stage

Does any animal really rape its young?
Do two males sing each other a mating song?
Do birds eat while starving their nests?
Our Elephant continues to fail all tests

The winds of change remain still
Yet we look hopefully at the hill
Watching the animals tango
Hoping the fish don't go
So what do we know?
So, So and So

Hmmmm
ERHIO
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
THE FRUIT NOT FORBIDDEN

Scarlet Woman!
Robed in seduction.
Flesh distinctively carved, 
Voluptuous and juicy; 
Calling out for the taste of the pudding,
Honeycomb and the fruit not forbidden.
Who has made the sweetness of a fruit forbidden
When each bite is filled with delight?
Why rein the potency of passion
When the flesh must awake to touch and sight?
I taste of the pudding, honeycomb
And the fruit not forbidden,
And my eyes were opened. Bloodshot.
Soul aflame with the burning fire of sin,
Lust tingling the flesh now charred into servitude
With painful red sores sprouting with a justifying glee,
I wear a garment of discomfort
Acquired from the embrace of passion.
"I have eaten of the sour grape
Now my teeth is set on the edge."
Would I taste of the pudding,
Honeycomb and the fruit not forbidden again?
Dishonesty may fill the buds of my tongue,
Truth anchor on my flesh plagued with pain and sores
Waiting to be cleansed, liberated and cured.
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Adeoye ADETOBA.  
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
In This Labyrinth

Another journey begins
To rediscover
What was not lost but buried
Buried and doomed or saved
By the kernel itself
Where only beauty and light forever will be
In this labyrinth

How beautiful death is
For him who goes forth
Never to return
Death the gift of birth
Birth the gift of death
One the transient opposite of the other
In this labyrinth

Sharing ignorance
In comfortable deception
Uncomfortable wisdom of unknowns
Knowledge
The know
And ledge
Of growth
And retrogression
In this labyrinth

In this labyrinth
The theatre for all
Where the elements are the stage hands
To these creatures
Tying and untying knots
Where heaven or hell is hinged  
 As we race into time
Into the unknown
Known destiny foretold


Ifeanyi Okwosha       November 2015 
//////////////////////////////////////
SO I MUST DANCE
In the menace division 
You bring meaning to vision
You are selfless and faithful 
You give me the beat
So I must dance
You feel the hurt
But never allows the cut
Like a cord, you stuck to me
So I cannot let go of me
You give me the beat
So I must dance
You are greatly gifted in talent and hope
That not the many bumpy fate
Can deter your hope
So you forced mine to grow in yours
You give me the beat 
So I must dance
Chris 'N' John

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
SOLDIER ON 
So you choose to taste
Of the wine that made men cry
Should you be given
Overflowing measured pint
Soldier on! Soldier on! 
Surely with filled hearts
Of teeming bubbling gusto
Strangers lurk to nib
Of your courage, in the bud
Soldier on! Soldier on! 
Swiftly flying bullets and
Open air grenade earthquakes
Slyly plague a slumber
Of dreams, feverish nightmares
Soldier on! Soldier on! 
Same, the dawn you wake to
Of the Legion many fall,
Slain in a cold reddish blur,
Of shrapnel in Nyanya and Baga
Soldier on! Soldier on! 
Sing odes to friends unsung
Of wars unwanted, yet had
So, it begins!
Oh, it begins! 
IFEANYI MBAH
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
30 MINUTES OR MORE
These signs are not her wonders
These leaves are not his present
They want lasers and swords
Questioning intentions
Testing love
Love of change
Love of self
Love at loss
Fighting to no end
In anger
There is
Love of friends
Love of siblings
Love of love
Love for today
Love for tomorrow
Thirty minutes and more
Abiola Bonuola
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
HOMECOMING
With hands trembling slightly
She ends the call
So long ago
Goodbyes were said
And now to welcome
Anxiety gnawed at her insides
Trimming excitement
Into sweaty trepidation
What if?
Kemibon.
////////////////////////////////////////////
SO…MANY SOS!

Is this me, solemnly preparing for the moment, excited nervousness becomes me
I am sonorously serenading the audience, I watch you, watch me, secretly, silently
Soaking in the admiration, unabashedly forgetting old lessons, lessons? I laugh
For I am way past caring, my fall is somatic, automatic, so melodramatic

Is this you? Reigning sovereign over my heart, you the victor and I
Finding my solace in your loving? embrace, holding on… softly I sigh

Oh No! this can’t be me, somberly, watching you leave, wanting to plead, knowing I won’t
Sobbing my heart out, drinking the sodium of my despair, disbelief…disgrace
As you turn away, with an unsoftened, inscrutable look on your face
Walking away, I have fallen prey to a misogynist and

Now… this is me! so sorry and filled with dread for what is mine to come I know
A broken heart for a souvenir and the inescapable “But I told you… … so
https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gifMarilyn Maduka