POEMS READ AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 7 EPISODE 2 "RELY"

WINNER POEM OF THE MONTH AJIBOLA

THERE IS COMPANY (WINNER POEM OF THE MONTH)

Incendiary desires, consummate lust

Consummate cheaters, lost

in moments of momentary pleasure

Lascivious mister; unrepentant lecher

Promiscuous preacher, Salacious sister

The clandestine myth.

Cupidity is like an ovarian cyst, starts with

something as little as a passionate kiss

Lips lock like lungs sprung on respirators

Teeth clinking; A goblet tryst

Pheromones are innate goblins.

The Brownian motion of ping-ponged bodies.

The rush... The pull... The push

Against the wall, then onto the table

beside the shelf, to the bed beside the table

Knocking off the meditating lamp...

It sensing danger, dived to safety,

Landed in pieces.

It's dead ray unleashed darkness

Casting shadows of their squalid mind

On a grotesque wall of a tainted conscience

A self consuming flame enveloped their essence

Hurriedly, they peeled off clothes from their bark

They fell off faster than they were worn

Amazingly, in the order they were worn.

Humid heat, purple sheets...

Two tangled, three tango

Lurking in make shift crevice,

A tarantula, tucked in gently

Between bed sheets, Peaceful sleeping trouble.

Rocking rodeo, bouncing castle,

humpty dumpy, grinding pestle

Feeling threatened, it stung, he sprung,  she lunge

Again, he groan,  she moan; obviously, lost in ecstasy

She totally oblivious, as he grimaced...

Amidst his cataclysmic jerking, lethargic writhing

Two is a crowd... Three is company.

ADEOYA AJIBOLA

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MY GUY CLEAN YOUR EYE

Hehehehehehehehehe hmmm
While it is said Kenyan women get to keep two guys
it was rumoured Eritrean men should kiss mongamy goodbye
There must be some sort of weed in the air
For no one seems to care
Corruption is still on an all time high
Politicians no longer need to deny
Let the people cry
One day their tears will run dry
Let soprano singers sing bass
Let monkeys eat grass
Things would never be like before
The world is full of back doors
Lamps without oil
Guiding the sons of the soil
Caterpillars no longer certain if they would ever fly
Yet a voice whispered 'Rely'
Rely!!! ???
On whom? On what?? That voice should reply
For we hoped our answers would come from the sky
But someone tuned the sun to deep fry
So we kept our hope locked within
And trudged through this maze of sin
Where icebergs threaten
And Lighthouses beckon
But who do we trust?
The blind leading the lost?
Poverty for all at any cost
Yes someone definitely threw weed in the air
No need to despair
Your eye go soon clear!

ERHIO OBODO

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RE-LIE

Shower me not with

Such sweet sour emptiness

From your wagging tongue of lies

For this earth beneath my foot

Could be a sinking land for loot.

Like you did told our fathers

To drop their brains back home

And walk upon your shores empty headed

For you to replace their hollow heads with yours.

Your pot of lies never ceases to boil

Like when they sat around that round table

And you dished to them meals of deceit

While their bulging bellies replaced their heads.

I can see why we the children

Like Almajiris still run to you for grains.

If I shake my head

Like I was paying heed

While you try to beautify

The essence of being a tenant in my own house

And your firework makes a mockery of the fire-fly

We shall soon see which of them outlives the other.

We have always relied on you

Like we have always relied on our legs

To be as swift as that of the fastest antelope

We even murdered our own

On an ideology over blown.

Now you are back

With the storm in your hands

And fire in your mouth

To enshrine or to consume

Of what we have left of our toil

This time we didn’t go to you

But you have decided to come to us

With Larger or is it Largarde in your hand

Possibly to get us foolishly drunk

For this time we won’t accept a re-lie.

AYINLA MUYIDEEN

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A LETTER TO MY GUESTS

Cracking sounds

Heralds the early morning lights

As they awake from the mysteries of the night

Where night and day shook hands

In complete understanding

An agreement

From a time before history was born

Our children ran in cycles

Two’s and four’s

To keep the match

Through the stand still called time

Me, my siblings and cousins

Ran round our mothers who gave us life

Life we shared

Yes we were given to give

And we gave abundantly

I often wondered

How my siblings and cousins fared with their guests

For mine have given me

Heartbreaks,

Headaches,

Stomach upsets,

Enough trouble

To make their stay miserable

And even eject them

But I still stand tall

I still give them abundantly

But not for long

If they continue this way

I am hurting

Some of my guests are beginning to realize it

We need each other

We rely on the love we give each other

To blossom and flourish

I have always loved you

Like you love each other sometimes

Although you feel I treat you unfairly

When I’m hurting and react

I have always loved you more

Always reliable

Wake up

And stop hurting me

If you lose me

You will be lost  

IFEANYI OKWOSHA            

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THIS YAM IS NOT GOOD

My mother relied on her intuition in matters, big and small.

And I trusted her advice; so when at age twelve, she

Patient eyed and keen as a tigress focused on its prey,

Looked at the groceries I had bought, picked up the yam

Saying; This yam is not good!

I believed her. This woman with a smirk on her face,

The face I wore when, in the eagerness of youth I

Rent an udara fruit still yet juvenile, lapping its juice,

Chewing its flesh as it slapped my palates in rebellion.

She looked at the tuber; a scratch here, two dents there

And proclaimed; This yam is not good!

She knew by heart, the right amount of achi

To achieve soup of smooth perfect thickness,

And the heart of men, like the contractor who,

Courting my father, came with his people to propose.

Obi ojo! She had said of the man, and spared my father

Great losses with the same face of absolute disapproval as

She had done when she said; This yam in not good!

It was so, on the day the letter came, a letter of promises

A bank offer my friends would give anything for, but

My mother, who somehow knew left from right and right from wrong

Said, frankly; Nne, this job is not for you!

She was right. But she didn’t speak when, with gifts of wine and yams

Nnamdi came visiting. My stomach tightened when I saw that face

In her silence, the smirk spoke to you, the demeanour she had bore

The day she said; This yam is not good!

You only now understand why she didn’t speak. When,

You knew that she knew, that you knew she did not approve.

Many years had to pass, before you learnt the trade of your ancestors.

You called your cousin, your voice resolute, to come take you away

Two sets of tired eyes stared at you. Your face, black and blue, felt no pain

Their hands fastened in yours. Enough was enough. You had learned,

Sadly, the hard way, Love is not blind, and did not need to be blinded by blows

You sucked your tongue and wore the demeanor your mother bore when

She’d said; This yam is not good.

This trade, done by mothers, as the women before your mother, to

Rely on their intuition, that compass that got them through the small and the big

To walk the bushes and know the path to follow, separate light and darkness in

Broad daylight and know, by heart, good and evil just as is.

You had learnt, known, the wisdom of those before you. You will teach your daughters

This truth, this gift, that with this compass, they shall recognize light and darkness

In broad daylight. So with eyes, though now tired, they will know, by heart.

Relying on their intuition, they will walk many a dangerous path unscathed, and

From afar, weigh a situation, look at a yam tuber and, wear the smirk my mother bore,

And like her, say, with certainty; This yam is not good! 

IFEANYI MBAH

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RELY

A poem is a made thing

A found thing, maybe even a foundling

It does not always act like the cold in the head that makes it

Impossible for any fire to warm us

As the Belle of Amherst experienced it.

It does not always feel as if the tops of our heads

were taken off.

It is not even always a Jeremiah like fire in the bones

as if God was speaking to and through the Poet.

Tried to make up a poem using book titles containing the word rely.

That did not wash, even after an appeal to Google

Or even to its incarnation as Alpha Bet.

This had to be a form of creation Ex Nihilo.

And so we are back to Faith which is relying on God

And to the exhortation not to rely on our own understanding.

Thus, begging the question and even the pardon of the great Exhorter.

On whom must we rely?

Reliance- a little boy learning to tie his laces

Saying in the process i will succeed and try

Inverting the order of his father’s mantra

Stumbling on a truth of gargantuan proportions.

Reliance- a small town in Ohio where all such small towns with

Such evocative names always seem to be found.

Or is that just in Toni Morrison's fiction?

And so back to rely.

For if we do not stand together as men; as people (we must be politically correct)

We shall surely hang together as fools (that has no gender distinctions)

No intellectual distinctions either, as a person

can be a PhD from Cambridge and a fool!

C. S. Lewis said that.

And we have seen that.

The Tower of Babel as a metaphor

not of cacophony but of possibility.

The various ages of man- not in a Shakespearean sense

but in an evoking of the history of the world

leading to this age of Technology, Industry and Moore's law.

Nobody or no thing self-made.

All coming up by way of reliance

Rely and collaborate- the defining buzzwords of our age.

Giving us Rolls Royce, Microsoft, Apple, and Hewlett Packard.

Explaining the self-styled Don and the boy from Bariga.

Public spat; public and private reconciliation!

ANDREW WHYTE

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A SOLEMN PROMISE

And this is
My solemn promise
The oath I seal
With a scarlet kiss,
A covenant
Your heart to please,
A pledge
Of your burdens to ease.

And this is
My solemn promise
To wipe the tears
Dripping from your eyes.
To bring upon your
Cloudy day
A wondrous sunrise
To restore upon your
Lovely face your perplexing
Smiles,
And finally lay down
My life as a perfect sacrifice.

And this is
My solemn promise
To walk you
Through the dark
To nurture you
So you'll never lack,
To spoil you
With utmost care
To fight your
Fiercest fear.
Have no doubt
I'll always be
There,
Never worry;
I'll always be near.

NATHANIEL INCREASE

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ABIMBOLA

Can you keep a secret??
How long can you keep it??
Can you not tell her
That while she slept
I took out time to count 80 tiny strands
In the upper lid of her left eye
Can you not tell her
That she is my Muse
And her absence here
Has rendered my quill useless.
Can you not tell her
That for pride's sake
I act as if I don't know her favourite colour
Her favourite food
Her favourite Author
And her favourite books.
Can you not tell her
That I sometimes see how she stares from across the room
When we are seated apart
How her stares burn when she see me flirting with other girls
Can you not tell her
That I know
That she quietly hopes I break up with Bae
With those "expert" relationship tip she gives
Can you not tell her
That her voice is terrible
When she sings,
And that smile on my face
Was birthed from pain in my eardrums.

Can you not tell her
That I love her dreads
In tiny locks
Like starving macaroni rolls
Can you not tell her
That I know how she scents
Like Shea butter on honey
And sometimes like expired baby powder and strawberry

I ask again
Can you keep a secret?
Can you not tell her
That on very dark days
Her smile with the alluring toothgap
Works wonders
Can you not tell her
That I can write of
Towns and cities.
Rivers and lakes
Sculptures and monuments
Poets and poetry
But when I try to write about her
Words fail me.

Can you not tell her
That I rely on her
Towering body frame
To ward off unseen word thieves
Lurking in dark corners
To snatch away my vocabulary bank

Can you not tell her
That she is beautiful
And that Helen of Troy and Cleopatra
Visited my dream
Demanding for her beauty tips

Can you not tell her
That the twinkle in her eyes
Has snatched shimmer
From the most precious of stones
And Da Vinci obviously had her in mind
While he painted Mona Lisa

But just in case you can't keep a secret
You can tell her
That if I were a Sailor
She'd be the anchor for my ship
If I were a quill
She'd be my ink
If I were Banga
She'd be my starch
And If I were Poetry
She'd be my words.

UGOCHUKWU EMEBIRIODO

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PACIFIST

Pacifist Ice

Caps mountains, to quell volcanic rocks

Bulwarks of the Mongolian highlands rising from the ground

And tucking back excited clouds straying towards them.

Pacifist

The clouds have assembled to enforce a détente

Now the Sun will sheath her sword

And not slay the Reindeer

For mocking her when the snow arrived with a blanket of frost

For the frost bit the grass

Killing her roots and blunting her blades

And the Reindeer jumped around

Pulling a sled

And a man cloaked in red

With beard mocking the snow

The green blanket shivered under the burden of whiteness

Craving the Sun

Praying the Sun

He heard

The Sun heard

And arrived with fiery eyes and a magic stick

And turned the snow to water

White land into green land

And the Reindeer he was to make a cake

Then the clouds arrived bearing peace gifts

They clung to themselves

Lumps of peace

Stitched together like the works of a tent maker

To save the Reindeer now sheltering at the house of the Mongols

Rumbling clouds keeping the peace

For the Sun to re-blade the grasses

The greens of the Mongolian plains

On which the Reindeer relies

To feed

To make milk

Which a woman cloaked in red harvests

To make cheese

Till the snow returns

And the hoary beard man cloaked in red arrives

With a sled and a bag

To his Reindeer friends

That pull him over the snow and the moon

While he sits on the sled shouting

Ho! Ho! Snow!

CHUKWUEMEKA DEUS NJOKU

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LOVING JUST HER

I love her everyday
Like mummies first breast milk
Like the world of creation
Ended after she was formed

Her skin reminds me
Of the pure colorless color of liquid
When its ice
Filled in a glass.
Makes ones throat dry at every glance.

Her voice kills everything odd
Her character mirror’s man
Her presence makes one complete

I want to dwell in her
But if I die today, before another dawn
Let me be buried in her feature
So we could meet again
To converse, in lingual
Only love can understand

I am lost, in the definition of her
I need her, to live longer than Methuselah.

Every new dawn bakes me another you
That rekindled my desire
To hold you on.

OSIGWE BENJAMIN

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THE SUSPECTS


Stones
grow feathers
fly blind
and crack castles of glass;
magnets acquire souls,
their new found emotions
a force of attraction.
To bear flesh
is not to be human,
there is nothing right of what is left.

Beware of pyrrhic victories,
run from those who kill ants
with sledge hammers.
I’ve always trusted others
but never had faith in myself.
I am first guilty
till if ever proven innocent.
I swear I didn’t shoot the deputy,
but when a silent fart goes off
in a rancorous room,
then everyone is a suspect.

Some sinners are more righteous than others,
they say every sin can be forgiven,
but the conscience is just a bad judge.
A placid kidney
and a limp,
two solid alibis
At the poetry court.
Poetry is not for detectives,
Poets do not detect-thieves.

They get drunk on their words,
empty with voracious thirst their gourds;
and the robber waits for that monkey time
When their hearts dance no more
to the rhythm of the clock’s chime;
he strikes like thunder
and is lost in a flash,
Curtain falls.
Inebriated gods
of lost vowels and missing alphabets
experience cold sweats;
We try to answer missed calls,
but after multiple orgasms, 

energy fails
and we are inclined to gnash.

The dreamer
didn’t warn,
we would have saved up stock.
After seven years of work,
the canker-worms came for the harvest.
Beware
     soul brother
                 beware;
take heed of poets who come to borrow ink.
I’ve learnt never again to close my eyes, 

especially when the pastor prays for tithes.

 SOONEST NATHANIEL

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The frozen grounds in the cold winter
Would not deprive us our harvest
Even if the rain has refused to come
With our sweats we'd water these seeds
Until they are ripe enough to make us a feast

No matter what the world throws at us
We would make ourselves a feast
And eat to our hearts' content

The tears rolling down our
eyes
Are not for the countless souls buried beneath
Nor are they for the freshly bursted open skulls lying on the streets
These tears are for the freshly sliced onions
Aromatizing our meals with it's romantic scent
We would feast like our worries are no more

The pom! Pom! Pom!
Of pestle hitting mortar
Punishing slice after slice of yam
Would deafen our ears
To the repeated bomb blasts and gun shots in the air
We would feast oblivious of their hostility

The choking smoke from the frying palm oil
Would numb our senses
To the used-to-be dusty roads
Now blood flowing streams in front of our doors
We would make food instead of war
We would return every bullet shot with a dose of love

So when we come face to face with our biggest fears
Guns and bullets in hand ready to fire
We would hold out a morsel of akpu
And set before them a plate of Ofada rice with it's pepperish stew
We would feed them the earth black amala with ewedu
And the heavenly white Fura De Nunu as dessert
We would feed them till the beast in them is too heavy to stand
We would feed them with love
We would feed them until they are sane again
We would feed them until they'd rather eat than kill

AJIBOLA HABEEB

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NWA OKORO

Who will save you now Nwa Okoro?

Since you have no saviours

How old is this your soul

That it should swim in this river of agony?

The distraught earth weeps for you Nwa Okoro

The heavens look down on you in shame

Tears of widows tears the silence

Change has come to you unrehearsed

This silence is more deafening than death

It plunges your virgin lands into misery

And your virgins in to the slavery of conquerors

Nwa Okoro you choose whatever gods that suite you

Now they have flawlessly deserted you

You claimed you have no king

See how your sons are lost like Mufasa’s son

Like Mufasa you may never see them again.

CHISOM