POEMS READ AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 8 EPISODE 1 NEO SEASON PREMIER

WINNER POEM OF THE MONTH

THANK YOU!!! – POEM OF THE MONTH

So I joined the queue
Jumped on the canoe
And journeyed towards the New
A change in hue
Fresh brew
Waiting for that view
From out of the blue
A new avenue
I looked at you
Every one of you who knew
It had to be true
Was it new revenue?
I had no clue
But I could feel the joy all the way from Timbuktu
I watched as winds blew
Birds flew
Grass grew
I felt the morning dew
Smelt iya Basiras stew
And yearned for that breakthrough
Change long overdue
No more taboos
No more sad news
As earth activated: Renew
Smiling at you
I beckoned you to join the queue
Jump on the canoe
And wish me what I wish you

Erhio Obodo

//////////////////////////////

THE NEO-SCIENTISTS

Once I knew a little boy

One who talked of of being a neo-scientists

As I considered the mis-use of the word

I heard him talk of re-inventing everything invented

I admired his dream

Singing from my ancient and modern

I tried to picture the little boy's imagination of the future

But it was not possible

what he saw was beyond my years

So I became a philosopher

But there is nothing to philosophize anymore

So I question everything and existing philosophies

First as a marxist

Then a neo-Marxist

Gradually becoming more less leftist

As I in debates am hardly ever right

And critiques trash the beauties that I write

Ideally becoming more realistic

Trying to succeed is becoming capitalistic

Where would I place myself in this little boy's future

Dreams are beautiful

Even more so if we dream with open eyes

I have come to realise there are no new dreams

Just new dreamers

Recycled dreams needing re-inventing

For the dreamers who are sleeping

And the many sleeping deep

Making the grave a rich dreamland for dreams that need resurrecting

But hopefully

Not the dream of this little boy's future

Then that little boy

The neo-scientists needed dreamers

To help him paint into realty

His imagination of the future

But now wat is needed is action

So says the philosopher

Who still dreams that little boy's future

Olamide Santos

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NEO

She is Neo, the matrix’s Neo

She realizes that her love

Is filled with a spell of neo soul

Dipped in Africa’s honey

But the other

Who is not her love

Is afraid of words

Because his fear happens

When he meets a

New wordsmith

“He is so inclined to

New Formalism”

“He is so traditional”,

She says.

Her love

Makes her feel

That poetry gives it

Love like she does,

Calm and swift

Slow and resilient

Music gives it

love like she does,

soothing and proud

And

She loves it

This is why

She clings to it

To her,

It is an embodiment

of neoclassicism

Her personal Neo

Li-ra’s album

Abiola Bonuola

////////////////////////////////////////

SNAPSHOTS

Renegades

We wriggle through greens

Those thirsty tongues

Feeling funny

Some touchy feely Chlorophyll

Start wooing water vapors

When the Sun is gone on a night’s journey

Now leafy tongues lap dews onto our skin

The Varnished handworks of Chukwu Okike

Sculptor of lush bronze with dark sprays

Melanin

Dark Varnishing

Spiritual brewing

Blood and honey and nectar

We stand

With bare torsos and bare feet

Facing the jungle

Neo jungle

Trembling goat skins cling fearfully to our waists

She stands behind me looking back

At our trail in the Soil

Footprints on fallen greens of Equatorial trees

I stand

Bow in hand

Arrow in the other

Looking forward

At the jungle of converted limestones

Rocks and glasses

Rows of adaptive Monoliths

Posing for the snapshots of our bewilderment

Hunters of wild boars and good fortune

We chance on tinsels and damsels

Donning conditioned hairs

Wearing lotioned skins and torso clothings

Falling short of measure with goat skins

She protests the keeping of my bow

What use is an arrow here Eve junior?

Of what use is it?

When my coarse hands crave the caress of new daughters of an old Eve?

Chukwuemeka “Deus” Njoku

///////////////////////////////////////////////

THE PEOPLE

The noise begins to crescendo

He what?

She what?

They what?

The abominable has occurred

The unthinkable has just happened

An unatonable happenstance

Unpardonable!

Unfair!

Unbelievable!

Unimaginable!

Voices are raised

Curses are rained

The deed is condemned by all and sundry

Masses decry the abominable deed

Young and Old

Rich and poor

Male and female

High and low

The decrying chants go on,

Then

SILENCE

Deafening silence!

Silence louder than the cries.

Where did the criers go?

What happened to the wailers?

The ‘concerned’ masses,

The ‘feeling’ masses

The ‘vehement” lamenters.

Their lives went on?

Their concerns panned out?

Have they done what was ‘expected’ of them?

For you see, they have cried.

Then, their lives went on!

Nneoma Onyeukwu

//////////////////////////////////

SHALL WE BEGIN

The truth is hidden in plain sight
It’s hidden everywhere for all to see
To discover within
The very essence of life
In soul searching lows and highs

Shall we begin this flight
Where the earth is the runway
We will soar not like the eagle
But like light on wings
Forged by Love and Justice sheathed in purity

Shall we begin this flight
Out of the dungeons we created
Shall we begin with
One thought
One word
One deed
At a time

Shall we begin and end this
This vicious cycle
And bring an end to all lukewarmness
The ego that abhors humility will be gone

Ifeanyi Okwosha            

//////////////////////////

“DEUS MEUS”

This is a tale of when humility went to a night club.

Humility entered the clubs’ front door looking confused,

starring like a lizard that just jumped to the ground

from a two-meter-high wall,

ready to do the evil things that men do.

Humility drank all sorts, gins, labels, nades and sys.

Humility smoked all the ‘smokables’.

Humility looked at all the ladies. Lost in stare, losing his shame.

What more didn’t he do? Humility fought even.

This is a tale of how humility went away sad.

Humility woke up the next day,

but using the water in the gutter as a mirror.

Simply put, humility woke up in a gutter.

Battered and depressed. Filled with shame and guilt.

As he walked, he remembered how he had

searched for the safest and holiest nightclubs around

using his smart phone. “I was an E-diot”.

He murmured in silence.

This is a tale of why humility became pride.

Humility refused to leave his depression.

He became angrier almost forever.

He refused to abandon his failure.

Humility found love in this four lonely walls of E-diocity.

Humility soon became thin out of ‘starvation’.

He became I,

for this is what pride is, I.

Humility really lost weight. But this weight, was the thoughts of others and his creator.

You would fall, but begin anew every day.

Panel.

//////////////////////////

“TRAMPLED”

From being a bead to a nursery

I moved on to a special plant pot

Out of the garden to a personal space

In a warm corner I sat and bloomed

Maybe it was my duty to grow

But there was this one thing I knew

I liked the splash of water that spilled on my very firm stem

I loved the smile that came with the admiration in her eyes

I was a gift you see,

A reminder of a lover’s love

I loved that I was that to her

So every day I bloomed and bloomed

And my earthen bed was the softest there was

When the sun was up, my colour brightened

I was a gift of love and I loved it

It’s morning now and the sun is up

The curtains are still down and all I can see of the sun is the peek from the covered blinds

Patiently I wait to stretch in the sun but she doesn’t come

What could be wrong, I can’t fathom

Then I see her face, still in her PJs

Eyes puffed and with a stuffed nose

The “gifter” of me had done the worst

His heart was gone to another and her love was paused

I stretch to comfort her but by now I’m weak

Being left in the dark for more than a week

Then one day I felt the worst

From that corner I was flung to the ground

No longer a reminder of love

With my bloom gone, I was trampled upon

I wished to speak but that was it

All I am now, is a flower in a pot.

Mayree Etti

/////////////

THOSE WHO DIE FIRST

This is to those who die first

Those who don’t see death in all its colours

Those who hear of it and never lived through it

The lucky ones.

This is to those who will die first

Those whose days define their story beyond life

Those who played on the outer shadows of immorality

In the shadows of things not mentioned

Taboos too wrought to be acknowledged

Those who saw things and wish they had not seen

Those whose lives are governed by the laws of the first born

This is to those who has died first

Those gifted life but choose death

Those whose dirty conscience rots

Those dehumanized beings calling themselves human

This is for those who were mentioned first but forgotten

Those who stood in high places and laced their souls with their ancestors.

This is for those who are not to be mentioned

Those whose wounds killed them first before they died

Those on the wings of death blissfully glide

Those we knew but now look at as new

This is for them, who live here now

Let us grasp fleeing hope on its tail

And die before we let go!

chisom