POEMS READ AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 7 EPISODE 10 "ENDLESS"

WINNER POEM OF THE MONTH

 BEFORE YOU ADD THE SALT TO THE RICE

(winner poem of the month)

Mother did say there’ll be days

But she never said they would be like this

She said before you add the salt

To the rice

Sit a while and listen to this

You will fall in love and it will feel good

But don’t get carried away with this

‘Cause when you get up from that fall

You’ll find love is more than this

Before you add the salt to the rice

My child know

That forgiveness is just that

Forgiveness

It’s either that

Or resentment and pain

And believe me you don’t want that

Before you add the salt to the rice

I tell you

No one matters to me more than you

Your happiness, your peace, your growth too

For You

My love will ever shine, like the sun in an African sky

Mother is gone but I can hear her

Through the fall in and of love

I can feel her warmth

Through the ice wall you have erected

As I wait endlessly for you to forgive

Mother said there’ll be days

But she never said they would be like this

The day I added distrust and earned your cold shoulder

KEMIBON

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A NOTE FOR SMALL MOMMY (WORTHY OF MENTION)

WORTHY OF MENTION WINNER

The day I called you mommy, I knew like the 3 year old boy in primary who won't let his mother leave for work, that I won't leave you, I knew like that boy I will wait brilliantly in class, half the time relishing the joy of a mother's warm embrace; and my lust will fuel my legs ready for that race into your arms again after the closing bell of joy is tolled. 

Did you fall asleep mommy? Did you drift as I tell now the tale of a boy whose eyes were always on the clock, urging it to tick away the light of day, to that time when he like a sheep long gone astray may return to his mother's fold. 

And the world will wonder how he passed his exams, but who will tell them that at the school of his mother's thighs, he often recalled in love all he had learnt only just to behold the smiles on her face and the glint in her eyes. 

Who will tell them that for every correct answer, he got a kiss, and often some dry fish to show he scored a great point.

Small mommy, I am that son, who would outpace lightening itself, just to be next to you, with palms stroking my hair, while i purr lost in your care.  

Nne, I am that boy who your love made into a man never afraid to cry, who learnt from the slate in your eye, that for every woman loved, the earth finds another reason not to dry up and die.  

Mommy the day you called me daddy, tears seeped through the crevice of my heart and welled in my eyes, for I knew that the baton had been passed from girl-to-woman, that this child who must father the man must drink his childhood; to womb dreams whose reality the world earnestly awaits.  

Adanne, I knew that in the school from which graduation is impossible, I had found a teacher, whose motherly care will keep me in class; I won’t be shy to show the world my report card, for you score the sheets, and love is the pass mark.

SOONEST

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TIME MACHINE
Take me to the time in the past
Sometime after the hills rose
The desert sands gathered
The rivers began to flow
And nature organized her flock
I want to see
That time when man knew peace
Harmony
Serenity
Love
When women and children were happy
When men were not mini-gods
That time when money and respect were earned
And greed was not yet a word
Take me there
Let me see
Historians please give me the date
I need to know it is possible
For man to live without hate
But if historians can not tell me
Maybe the fortune tellers will
When will it be?
Let me journey to the future
What year would men know peace?
When would our society be corruption free?
When would we be rid of sacred cows?
When would my journey begin
And my search end?
When will I see?
Just tell me the year
Past or future
And I will go there
For I need to see
Hope

ERHIO

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A BEGINNING THAT IS ENDLESS

A journey without a beginning

We were not there when it started

No it did not start

There no beginning

The beginning was when we started

And shall return to our beginning

Where we belong

How do you explain a timeless existence?

An existence beyond your beginning

No wander it is said

Time stands still

And we walk through time

All is movement within time

Time!

Who can tell me the time, time started?

To start keeping time for time

In this stand still called time

Were only movement is a constant

And that constant is change

Was there a beginning before the beginning of our beginning?

The word beginning can only be

When there is a beginning

Beginning!

There is an end to a beginning

Yes that we understand

I do not pretend to understand

Infinity

Eternity

Limitless

A journey without a beginning

We were not there when it started

No it did not start

There no beginning

The beginning was when we started

And shall return to A BEGINNING THAT IS ENDLESS

IFEANYI OKWOSHA

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"JUST THE BLUE FLAMES"

Nothing more, just the flames. The blue ones.

What is there about all these? A million needles piercing my skin.

Little by little, I feel the pain and the heat.

The every moment that your act bounces on me like a hit. The days when sin tastes like biscuit, maybe it still does.

That moment when all possesses its meaning.

Obscurity in doom, we are winning.

The Sun is now born-again.

The star has refused to fall every now and then.

The sky is lost in its own illusion. The clouds.

The moon has gone for its prom.

What is left?

This world is only a proem.

What do we want?

What do we want to live for?

What is the end of this all?

We keep doing the same thing. Over again.

What do you want?

The blue flames.

That is what I want.

That, is what boils my believes.

Yes, just like all, like Adam after the fall,

I have my fears. My hope is thus.

The rain drops, you know them? They never die, even if you think they do.

They hit the earth with the anger of the deceit of the sky.

They are filled with hope; they never sob nor feel disturbed. They know that they never die.

They rise again as soon as the Sun is born again. Now, they go in peace, stylishly, gratuitously but humbly, knowing that they have won the battle against the earth. Evaporation.

These are all moments in times of our lives.

We live, we die and then we live again.

"This is the summit of my fears"

But this as well is my hope.

Let the blue flames burn in me

As I remember my errors. In time now and in past then. Doing what I wish not, but done still. The same path Over and Over again. I have perceived the aroma of this flame. I have seen it. Its heat is what I cannot forfeit, for what I want is beyond me.

Let the blue flames burn, let it burn and burn off the scales I have formed in secret.

Let its fumes rob me and leave me rubbed with its perfumes.

Just the blue flames. That is all I ask.

#Panel.

ENUMAH KELVIN

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ENDLESS

Endless opportunities 

Endless strife

Endless frustration 

Where do I start

Darting around in circles

Got me dazed like endless shots of vodka

This one's not for the kids

Very much unlike nursery rhymes  

Much like chimes, I

Tend to hate the lyrical chanting of ayes

As they sit and nod; Yes!

The intelligent nods of clueless people

I've heard it said;

It gives Endless satisfaction

To snatch the wig of victory from the scalp of defeat

For a certainty,

All I see are endless limits 

~the virgin poet | Sept 2016

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HOME IS THAT  WET PATCH
beneath fallen leaves
That one spot
between celestial blues
and childhood harmony
Sepia Nostalgia
Massive childhood corridors now shrinking hall of memories

Your large dark rooms
Have arrested my senses
Talcum powder,  perfumes even soaps
bring a blast of laughter laced with tears
How I long for you.

Your corridors hid blushes of first kisses
Your bathroom lab to petroleum jelly induced experiments
Quakes were the end product

You heard the echoes of my first prayer
The naiveté of first shaky dripping dips
The muted moans of Foluke
Midnight tiptoes to render the soup pot barren

You carved me
From a piece of Oko Idanre
To a deity


In recent adventures
I've Roamed
From Duchin Bako to Paka
Agbani to Ubalaka
Bompai to Kafanchan
Kom-Kom to ifite a
Read Poetry on the hills of Ife
Swam the Aro waters of Itoku
Watched the sunset into the Niger
Tasted 404 in Ugep
Drank from the dripping caves of Ogbunike
Still I long for your comfort
Ulo Ibu Uzor
ine  me ka obim da joo.

HITCH

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HOW TO WAKE THE DEAD

This is how you wake the dead

First you have to kill them first

Bury them yes six feet first

Take a bowl made of tin though thick

Take it to the grave that is six feet deep

Place it at the head of the grave

Pour a liquid maybe water

Try not to spill a drop it makes it better

Lay your hands on the grave

And say the prayer you have been taught

But say it only from your heart

Watch and see if they rise

Let it be like a work of art

And watch the bowl burst in flame

. . . this daily is the chant of the mad man of Oruku

He cants endlessly . . .

No one knows where he came or went

CHISOM

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I WILL SING


With the tone of this burning flute

I seek to put this silence on mute

With the flames on my burning tongue

I shall sing for you a song



So my croaky voice does not hinder the flawlessness of this tune

I shall make music from the brightness of the dawning of the full moon

When words are faced with imminent defeat

I shall tell tales with the eager thumping of my heartbeat



I shall tell tales of how your tears watered this barren land

How your sweat soaked this draughty sand

I would hum tunes of how your flesh mopped rivers dry

And how your compassion made rocks cry



I shall tell stories of the sun that refused to set

The light that kept darkness away from sight

I will sing about the moon that concealed its light

So her stars can continue to shine bright



I will tell of the hands that moulded boys into men

I will sing to appease the heart that taught my heart to love

I will forever sing your praises

I will scream them always, with or without my voice.

AJIJOLA

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Ending

I am not sorry

For this resolution

This conclusion

This final scene

I am not sorry

I am not going to apologise

Because my last act

Has to do with

Living for this King

This is not about

the saints marching

or movement or death

It is a simple epiphany

That chess is not just a game

It can be a law

You see in chess

We protect our King

Yet this King may deliver

the checkmate

This King is strong

Only at the endgame

Let’s close the books

that talk about

ide, ate and ite

Or the apocalypse

I would rather

not read them

Let’s just play

our music chords

Using the repeat sign

Or act as first time bars

He gives us Grace

to make stories in time

And we dance an everlasting mime

It may be bata

Definitely not that

Of the seven veils

Greene says He made a way

Don Moen said so too

Standing in a flower garden

I feel lighter

As though

He is right there

My Kaptain Afrika

Making a way

And He may be

After all He is

Our greatest Art Maker

Abiola Bonuola

October, 2016

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The Circle

It is a circle
The man said
That the father of the son
Is the son of the father
So the land drowned further
In the liquid of his power
A circle he has formed
And as in a cage we are trapped.

It is a circle
The wind said
That the voice bears the air
And the air births the voice
So the land convulses
In the mirage of promised change
A circle he has formed
And as in a cage we are cornered.

It is a circle
Without end
The beginning bears the end
And the end the beginning
Even nature choruses this change
As blood soaked ground
Emits its luggage and we wail

It is a circle!

Chris ' N' John