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

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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

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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.

Adeoye ADETOBA.  

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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 

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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”

Marilyn Maduka