POEMS READ AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 7 EPISODE 1 (Premier) - BORN

TO BIRTH A MOCKING BIRD – poem of the month
They came with their axes and chainsaws
Off with the stem, the branches and the leaves
Chop, chop, chop and away
And with the chopping went my abode

So I drift to the dirt of the earth
No trees to perch; no need to fly
Hop, hop, hop and away
And with the hopping came hunger

A new diet of strange aroma and taste
Things found in the gutters and the mud
Munch, munch, munch and away
And with the munching brought new mystery

This mystery remained docile in my belly
Defying the defense of my gizzard
Sleep, sleep, sleep till you wake
And with the sleeping rests the mystery

Months passed and the mystery became history
I visited new friends at a club not of my kind
Perch, perch, perch and then stay
And with the perching, well, the flirting

Like a kraken the mystery was awoken
It left without a word and in search of other hosts
Linger, linger, linger and then spread
For with the lingering lay the ambush

Hard and swift was the conquest of these friends
And the ones who named their club POULTRY
Virus, virus, virus they cried
And with the virus came mayhem in their wake

None stopped to think of themselves as the cause
In seeking the beginning that brought about the end
Perhaps, perhaps, just perhaps it could be
Apathy for the lot of one that's not of them. 

End. 

IFANYI MBAH

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BORN

Peaceful as a distant blue sea

Quiet and loud like the rumbling waves

Making good a sight to behold

The graceful burnings of midnight lamp

Made speed a mare pace

While loneliness gave birth to self-control

With nobility and respect

An undeniable companion

Selflessness and alms stayed not far

As intellect and discernment

Is a twin in this race

Making the lion a meek goat

For in all these you are born.

Chris 'N' John

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JADED

I am losing

 confidence

Slowly taking inches off

like the barber’s clipper

snips off unwanted hair

I have become un-wanting

Not wanting to exist in this

Crazy parts

I am losing sense

Dropping seeds of common

Knowledge like the black round pellets

Of the goat’s anus

Strewing them across minds

Hoping that one ear will twerk

In acknowledgment of sound-ness

I am losing patience

Because vision is naught

Yet eyes have we

And we see but we

Don’t sight the trouble brewing

In the distance

Yes, that distant future

30, 20, 10 years

From now when

Development would be

Be-yond our reach

We chuckle now

And say

It will be well

Alas

I am losing mirth

Failing to comprehend the

Cackling of turkeys

Because Christmas is gone

And their laughter is no more

I cannot laugh

I am losing breath

Yes, I cannot

breathe

Because the stench of

Money billows everywhere

Here, where men chase after it like

The mad man of Kalahari Desert

I lay no claim to being a seer

But

I am birthing this;

The sun rises

But joy no longer resides here.

KEMIBON

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ANATOMY OF DEATH

Death comes at its time; sometimes untimely.

Peacefully in a sleep or gruesome with a shattering bullet.       

From the sharpness of blades hacking flesh and bones

To the spilling of blood and the vicious savagery of fire           

Consuming in utter blind rage and indifferent,

Souls have been dispatched into the world beyond.

Through the throes of painful deaths

Or from the last gasps of peaceful breaths;

Life all comes to a null.

Staring at death they took to their heels.

Life to them embodied getting education,

Making money, marrying, having children and dying,

Yet trapped in the servitude of traditions

And the deceit of hopeful longevity,

Slaves they remain joyfully cuddling their chains

With profound admiration and fear of the unknown

While death with its cloak of sorrow

Plunders and pillages at will.

Prometheus from the traditions strayed.

His liver, the subject of his punishment, eaten out

Yet the glory of his theft rid the world off darkness.

The man from Galilee embraced death at the cross,

Defeated was not his cause but salvation to all.

Socrates with hemlock burning down his throat

That knowledge may stare boldface at ignorance.

Galileo endured the prison in a sacrificial grief

To keep the sun at the centre of our lives.

Moremi surrendered her freedom to the marauders

So the people of Ife may once walk again without fear.

Sacrifice and not servitude

Honour it breeds and hope gone forlorn.

Bravery and not cautiousness,

The rugged terrain to freedom it conquers.

Destruction awaits them that treat knowledge with a sneer

While embracing the narcissistic view of self.

Ye are gods little children,

Why die like mere men when death comes to all.

ADEOYE ADETOBA

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THE CAPRICORN

He trudged through paths unknown
Where birds had never flown
Or the wind ever blown
Searching for the throne
Made for him alone

He was offered twice
For half the price
Hot ice
An unholy sacrifice
He ignored their advice
And their eyes

The elements raged
Time aged
Relatives rampaged
Society placed him in a cage
Yet he calmly watched the stage
Approaching middle-age
Un-engaged

He paid the bills
Felt the chill and the grill
Still
He swallowed the pill
Preparing to wait until
His heart felt fulfilled

'Enemies have sworn!'
They all warned
But they left forlorn
For he remained stubborn

Then one harmattan morn
His heart was airborne
As before him stood a unicorn
The one his ring would adorn
The one for whom he had faced scorn
Happily he blew his horn
The Capricorn reborn


Erhio

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PLANTING ALL SEASON

Felt it in milliseconds

It flashed through

It happens

In moments of purest joy or deepest sorrow

Golden like silence

It flashes

Like lightening

It transcends

The deepest depth to the highest heights

I know the pain of love

The joy of sorrow

In this farm

Where I plant everyday

My home within and across time

I plant and reap

Served me my fair portion

As I continue to plant even now

Tomorrow I will welcome with joy

For it is another opportunity to plant

Not a moment to waste

Most I have left to wither

A few I have kept alive

My enemy looks back at me

In front of my friend

I see them

In the mirror

All in one

And indivisible

Ifeanyi Okwosha          January 2016

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I AM ART

You are human

But I am art

You were born in love

I was born as art

My life is the craft

My inner being is art

I transliterate heaven and it content

From scribbled words to clear paintings

I live with the profession

I work with artistry

I know art

I embrace only credibility

I teach imagination and character

Better than Picasso’s Three Musicians

You teach knowledge and science

It doesn’t matter

I am Queen Art

I speak like the Monalisa

You can surely see

Leonardo is the beat

To my dance

You have no chance

I declare Art

Like the Titan

Of Thunder

Ignoring Hera

On my path

Art is me

And I?

I am ordained

as Art.

Abiola Bonuola January 2016

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HE SAYS HE KNOWS THE COLOR OF THE DUST

He says everything he says is true

Every flatter, every compliment

It is the truth, and he sounds confident

He is speaking into her ears

But all he wants is her soul

He wants the whole of her to himself

He is not promising a very big cage, with rows like that of a shelf

Just a platform for her to fly, for her to be her true self

3.15 a.m

He notices a dimple, which he says is her first for the day

He notices how her face

Shines as if sprayed by the sun’s radiance

Then he kneels to pray

To request for her on-going dream to come true

When the body is absent

And when conversations take place

He wanders after her voice, its milk and its texture

Then he launches into questions

Wondering what’s wrong

Rejecting responses which says things are normal

As if on steroids

As if high on music notes from an invisible stereo

He launches into chorus,

Into songs no one has heard, even if music history is their focus

He says his love for her is pure

It has been planted ever since

And now the sun has made love to manure

so harvests abound

He carries her in his arms to display to the surrounding walls

He may not know much of the world

But he‘s ready to proceed to war

To fight them, if that’s what’s needed to keep her

He says he knows what she’s thinking

Whenever dimples berths her face and eyes twinkles

He says she will be forever young

And joy fills the heart to which she belongs

These are the things he is saying

Proofs of affections running deep

Proof of the weight of love, which he makes light

Proof of illuminations emerging from within, which makes a face bright

He is saying things he knows

He is speaking the truth and it shows

She’s believing it too

And that’s how the story goes…

Akeem Adetayo Oyalowo

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THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE
I was born on the other side
Of life,
Where babies don't cry
But gnash their teeth,
In an attempted feat
To stand the great heat
Of multitudes clustering
Under one hut.
Yea!,a gnashing of teeth
In an attempted feat,
To stand the great heat
Of the sun.
Hawking underneath it,
As into their marrows
It sucks,dries and burns.

I was born on the other
Side of life,
There,where the hopes
Of tomorrow thrives,
On the yield of mothers strive
There,on her daily hikes,
To live as mother and wife,
In thirst and hunger strikes
To see that her children feeds
Amid their millions of
pressing needs.
Yea!,on the yields of mothers strive,
Searching like scavengers
From trash to bins,
Giving her precious life,
That we,whom to her were
More precious;might live.

I was born on the other side
Of life,
Where children don't smile,
Their best but a sigh.
Born without a silver spoon,
To eat but once in a new moon.
Yea! Born without a smile,
My best was but a sigh
For my dreams soared
Far so high,
Way beyond my reach
In the sky.
Yea! I was born on the other
Side of life
Of dreams never coming through
Of peace but for a rare few
On that line where lies
Not my queue.
Yea! I was born on the
Other side of life
There filled with pains
Like the sting of a full hive
Yea! The other side of life
Where only the God favoured
Few can survive.

INCREASE NATHANIEL

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BORN!

Born to win in the lottery that is life

Born to run the race to death

Born to die in a blaze of glory

Not like Walcotts waiter who as a born loser

was born to fail.

Born in situ; in country

Born to rule over the affairs of the orb

Born to run free in the wilds

while going walkabout as a rite of passage.

Born Again- a Peripoesis where the center is the perimeter

Born as the wind that blows

The thief that comes

The tree that bends

Born in time and living through eternity

Carpe Diem and the seizure of the moment

Born for a time such as this, leading to if I perish I perish

Born in an explosion of Revelation

Intelligent Design or Natural Selection

The selection of the fittest in a Hobbesian

nasty, short and brutish World!

Or contrariwise, a construct of loving thought

and an ache for companionship.

Born for a moment where alone as God is not good

Much as alone with God is not good and so the woman came

from the ribs.

Not Chinese spare ribs, of course

Nothing spare about a woman

Not the head as a for instance- too hard, too bony, too dominant

And certainly not the legs- too thin, stalky and spindly in some cases

She is not to be trodden underfoot

And so, the ribs!

Good choice all round.

Born to be where I am as in wherever you are be there

Mindful, still, silent and solitary

enwrapped and ensconced in the moment as all the mystics

old age and new age will have it.

Chronicled in microfiche

Autobiographed, biographed and memorialised

if having something worthwhile to show and tell.

In my birth is my death, writing my own epitaph

as one starting with the end in mind- channeling Covey

Knowing why I was born I enter a new Paradigm

Equipping me to engage with science in Bob Beamon- like Quantum Leaps!

ANDREW WHYTE

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REBIRTH

Every moment I close my eyes in sleep,
I pay by installment 

the debt
I owe death.
I awake to dreams,
life springs from the grave,
we are grains.

There is a path to germination,
the seeds flourish
when watered with affection;
but love is a file
lost when stored
In false memories.

Believes
and fears
pass for evidence,
liberty needs glasses.
There's an end to faith,
subject me under your hypnosis,
for I love the xenoglossy of dreams.

We don't fall in love
by fluke,
hope is a stillborn.
Ours is an unholy war,
Won by heroes of sand.
Yours is a bleeding heart,
acid rain stream from the eyes,
cry no more.

The dogs
Have eaten the children's bread,
Yet our ship is sailing
On the river that flows forever.

We have passed the dark fields of pain,
We are headed for the secret garden;
It's a one way trip.

Breathe in
breathe out;
exhale all your delusions.
Trust me,
dispose of your suicide machine;
the rose grows from concrete.
There is music from broken flowers,
they become screens;
I mirror myself on the petals of time.

It's been a long day,
The stars say goodnight.
We'll rise again
from where the sun sets;
Wake me when I am free.

SOONEST NATHANIEL

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YIELD

Life threatening they say it is

All life they say is His

But here I lie as still as death

Waiting to be swallowed by earth

Having a boxing match with death

Death most times wear a familiar face

But here I am in a familiar race

Here I am like a dead man enjoying the evening

Here I am like a damsel thinking of leaving

Like a man grieving on Thanksgiving

They say dying is easy

Like lying is easy

Stuffs I learnt so much from a coward

I know there’s nothing more cruel like a coward

For the back of his head is the face of a coward

Should I die in agony and fear?

Will I die of grief and fear?

A love hater is the nature of grief

I will give the world to lift this grief

The lies we tell ourselves to lift grief

Suddenly death grew a conscience

And in my stubbornness lost patience

Suddenly knew this life is His

Left me to take a piss

For my life He refused to yield because it is His

CHISOM