POEMS READ AT THE LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 9 EPISODE 2 - GOOD

 

MOST INTERESTING POETS IN NIGERIA!

WINNER POEM OF THE MONTH SEGUN PETERS (IN GLASSES)

THE COMPASS – (poem of the month)

I was born with a compass.

'Follow true north,' they say,

And my way I will find.

But I knew not where to go,

Or what will become.

Is there a way to know end before I journey,

Or to reveal this man before he discovers?

Oh tarry not!

Doom embraces him that doubts from the rising east

Purpose extols him that search in faith to the setting west.

I was born with a compass

And hence, my destiny besets at the tip of a needle.

I have lived by the compass.

'All is good,' they say,

And the 'path of righteous' I have found.

But as the final lights smolder in embers

I realised age reversed till I became as empty as of birth.

Is this journey ending in an impasse forced by neglected ideas

Or the revelation is of a discovery of troves of regret?

Oh what folly!

The compass taunted till I came to where north was true

And I met there the only 'true' was a soul I no longer recognised as mine.

I have lived by the compass.

And hence, my eternity is chained to doubts still lingering.

Too late! I die today their good man

Denied in a freedom of paths and twists and turns I never ventured.

Regrets! Better could'a the soul departed

Had I sojourned yesterday without their fixation on what should be my good.

I die by the compass

But I never got to live.

Segun Peters

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NAKED DAWN –(worthy of mention)

The creeping smell of newness invades me
A graceful nudity of Goodness it bore
In all colours of outlandish promises
I sunk into the muse, it took all of me
Let me bare this darkness once and not be judged
Let me spill my nakedness and not be vulnerable
Let me embrace this fear cause I wanna live and love
Let my crown of shame ripple ten thousand Joys
Let this naked dawn weave cords of Goodness
Priceless, Priceless, Priceless!

-Amar Basil 

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GOOD

Good-A Theater of Absurdity called Life

Stanza ONE

 

Good comes in diversities,

Good is an eloquent testament to

The parody of niceness.

Both are cheap allegories

Of dead values,

Drunk by men stoned on

The eureka of weed,

STANZA TWO

Good is a corruption of stupidity,

Many are deluded into its

Welcoming darkness,

You are either a saint or

The devil’s advocate,

STANZA THREE

A Good thing is an abstract aberration,

Just as people are neither good or bad,

Poetry is either good or bad,

Its flavor determined by the

Flourish of its artist,

Lost in his utopia of escapism,

STANZA FOUR

Being Good is a moral entrapment;

You are drawn to its embalming embrace,

But its Judas is its

Lack of judgment,

A judgment mired in the decaying

Tombstone of humanity’s inglorious

Miseries,

DENOUEMENT

Don’t be good,

It’s a derision sung by

Dead poets for the lost salvation

Of a race completely smitten

By the theater of absurdity

Called Life.

©Teddy Ugonna Richard

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SOLILOQUY

The silent night holds memories

Like a little boy holds his cotton candy

At a park where he feels lonely

Even in the midst of his friends;

Nobody notices his presence, not even when the music ends.

Tonight in the silence of this house of dreams,

A distant voice whispers,

It says: ‘you can’t have my promises’;

It says: ‘sometimes bad things happen for good’,

It says: ‘the principle of pleasure is pain’.

Earlier today, the world gave me a rapturous applause,

So tonight I have returned to the mirror,

I have come to stare into its eyes

And let the man within the glass

Lay on me his rebuke or grant me his pass.

He doesn’t seem to remember me,

He says there are songs I cannot sing anymore,

He says I will never be enough;

I show him where the sun lays buried in the horizon of my smiles,

But he says even makeup won’t work their miracles.

I say our love was born on the open water,

He says every love was born to die,

I say we took an oath before the silent witness,

He says we love to rehearse minor tragedy

As comedy for our comic relief.

I say all my pathways lead to you,

he says it is foolish to walk barefooted on broken glass.

I say let’s go to the fields and catch the light,

he says the sun doesn’t shine anymore

even on Sunday.

They say all good things will come,

but nobody said how long we would wait in the storm.

In this lonely hour, all I hear is the hiss of the night rain,

the voice in my head continues to chant it’s infernal refrain,

and I want to ask him: ‘can I have your life?’

SOONEST NATHANIEL

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  ‘THE DESIRED GOOD’

Good is something desirable,

Who doesn’t desire;

good dresses,

good job,

good mate,

good music,

good meal,

good friend,

good heart,

Yes, good love?

No wonder we cherish

Good news,

Good manners,

Good looks,

Good Poems,

Good things

All in all we want what is good, don’t we?

However what good is;

religion mixed with hypocrisy?

love filled with lies and betrayals?

hardwork amidst penury?

What good exist in;

broken promises?

children turn tyrants?

leaders exploiting masses?

long queues at the station?

Is there any good still yet to be desired?

As our souls are exchange for beef and milk,

We are fed with mischief, hate and deceit,

We get drunk with violence and killings,

We lose our voices to cries on blind ears,

Deaf eyes fail to see the good in our silence,

Dumb voices echo screams of despair,

Yet we hope for the good yet to come,

“All men are created equals but some are more equals than others”

Is that why our hearts should continually pump blood on empty stomachs?

It is said if the desirable is not available, then the available becomes desirable,

But nothing is even available!

If we shoot bullets from our pen,

Will it hit the target?

Will our words give birth to the good we desire?

Or will it just vanishes into thin air?

No matter what happens,

We will continually search for the good we all desire!

Asapen

Akinyemi Akinmusire

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SHE...
She is this omnipotent, omnipresent goodness
She is the soul of greatness
But she is used and abused
Her goodwill misused
In the churches, homes and streets

I can hear her weep
She gives hope
She reminds me to love
She reminds me of her
But gives a long rope
She knows the road to her core is tough

She births passion's fire
Now, mixed with two other words
She has become vain
She weeps like rain
Not for herself, but us
We who have forgotten her
And ignored her goodness

To her I raise this toast
Celebrating her mystery
She is more than a feeling
She is more than a virtue
A phenomenon or blessing
She is the very essence of life

My goodness! I write in your name
Yet you are farthest from me
As the sun is to pluto
So pulling petals of flower
I childishly gamble on you
She love me, she love me not
She...

OLAMIDE J. SANTOS

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COMMONERS AND DOUBLE STANDARD…

Where is the good neighborliness?

Where is true love and tolerance?

Where is empathy for humanity?

While it is easy for you and I

To point fingers at the insensitivity of our

Political, faith and traditional leaders

And like them, pay lip service to the ills of the society

We fail to make life any easy or bearable

To our neighbours even when we have the chance

We fail to sweep our corners clean 

It is so embarrassing

We don’t like ourselves

We all have stations where we play ‘god’ in the lives of others

We use our position to manipulate people

Just to satisfy our egos and selfish desires

We take advantage of others

To make cruel gains even in their pains, grief

And sorrow and still pretend to be doing them a favour!

Where is the good in us?

When we are so self-consumed

Our concern is ‘I, me and myself’ only

We get irritated by the genuine progress of

Our Colleagues, Friends and Family

We see nothing good in others

And criticize anything that does not gratify our curious pleasures

We talk down our subordinates

And choke them with our puffed egos

We front humility before our superiors

Only to backbite them

And we are so humble, very humble

When we get into trouble

Desperately seeking favour when things are beyond us

Some of us are so arrogant

So extreme, we frustrate and violet the right of the ‘helpless’ that they question their very existence

I nod away in shame

When I see people play god in the life of others

Shame for myself for being unable to help

Shame for the helpless victim

And a bigger shame for the vandal

Who should know that the sun will shine on everything we DO!

-Amami H.

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CHECKLIST

What's really the best thing in life?
Some think it's when you find a good wife
While some feel that causes more strife
A few think it has to do with your assets or financial might
A few others have learnt that just reduces your sleep at night
Feeling content with your current spiritual path?
Well Revelations may just change your heart
Some think it's when they find happiness each day
But happiness is found in different ways
Some ways cause others despair and pain
Is that happiness still good again?
So what's really the best thing for us?
Becoming our own boss?
Never experiencing loss?
Overcoming and learning?
Becoming wise and discerning?
Or just living comfortably to a ripe old age
Alongside your partner being an added advantage
Its like asking why carrots don't grow on trees
Or if there are birds that sneeze
Are our fingerprints related to our hair?
Maybe if we know why we are here
We could have an idea how we fare
Maybe by knowing why the sun goes east and not north
We'll be able to judge our life's worth
Do we merely exist?
Is it good as is?
Could we be better than this?
Or is this the best there is?
Let's hope you don't wait till the end of the race
Before you find out what's good or else...

Erhio

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FRIENDS

A tiny particle that becomes a beautiful piece

From birth to infant

From Infant to Teenager

From Teenager to Adult

From Adult to Old age

Hmmm…..

Like one of them said they serve as strength,

when you have them around.

Every moment you spend with them

brings out the best in you…..

SMILES…….

The good life

The good bones

Pretty good

Good manner

Good habit

Good to have them.

FLORENCE

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HAPPY POEM

Rumour has it that I don't write happy Poems
Rumour has it that whenever I pick up my pen to write
It is always about the sword, war,  or blood
Well, I don't know how true these rumours are
But today,  I'm going to be writing a happy poem
Because when you look around you
there are so many things to be happy about
So today I'm going to be writing a happy poem

Like hell I'm not writing shit
It takes a happy mind to appreciate a happy poem
How many smiling faces you see for here wey dey smile
I look around me and the only things I see are dead bodies
People who wake up every morning and die
Walking around with coffins in their mind

They said education is the key
But almost all our first class graduates
now have an additional MSc
Master of Short Cuts
In the course of trekking from one futile job interview to the other
They said education is the key
But the best graduating student in my class is now the PA to a Yahoo boy
They said education is the key
obviously someone changed the locks behind our backs

Ehm wait, but this is supposed to be an happy
Happy Poem?
You can call this whatever you choose to call it
But don't be deceived by the smile on my face
Or the lack of conviction in my voice
The pen that wrote this poem is not a happy pen
It bled so hard for 30 days and 30 nights
on an even angrier piece of paper
That it literarily destroyed the word
The mind that conceived it is not a happy one
This piece is not here to play with you
This piece is here to disturb your peace
I'm pissed

I'm filled with so much rage I sometimes forget my age
I'm so damn angry that with my BSc and MSc my survival is still at
other people's mercy
I'm annoyed that all the wealth in this nation is holed up in some
people's pocket
And I'm left to fight and struggle for crumbs alongside 180 million others
I'm pissed that I can't get a job if I don't know someone in authority
I'm so damn annoyed that I have 3 minutes to do this poem
While I have 3 decades worth of anger bottled up inside of me
I'm annoyed about life that whenever I think about it, the thing goes
skrrrrr in my head
I'm annoyed that comedians earn so much more that university professor
I'm pissed that Davido and Olamide are our society's measure of success
I'm pissed that Bobrisky is some people's role model
It's not as if I'm hating
But well, I'm annoyed

I will write a happy poem
When we remember,  what it feels like to be human again
I will write a happy poem
When our mosques and churches
Aren't just tax free multi million dollar businesses
I will write a happy poem when we can live and let live
I will write a happy poem
When missing daughters and burnt fathers
Mean more to us than election rallies
But with everything  that I have  said

Ajijola Habeeb

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

GOOD

You'll know everything good will come

In time

When you sight half of the yellow sun

You'll turn to your daughter whose eyes are freshly washed with tears

You'll murmur "weep not,child"

Weep not.

Yes good should come out of this

The memories of a decade of mourning

Will rush to shore like angry waves

And pull you into bitter regret

You never learnt the art of war 

So all you did was protect her

The one who you bore the pain for

Or so you thought

Good will come from death

His death

At your hands

So as you murmur "weep not, child"

You know

That when the fear subsides

And the regret descends slowly

Like a body lowered six feet under

Your song will rise like sweet smelling perfume

And silence the ones who made you stay with that good man

Kemibon

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GOOD

On Monday,

I was pissed with various text messages

As I opened it for a few seconds

It was my little beautiful girl

Who told me that I was a stranger

On Tuesday,

As I got back from work place

My phone started peeping me

“merry Christmas to you in this season “

“merry Christmas to you loved ones”

Come home, brother for Christmas

On Wednesday,

When I got to the bus stop around my area

I saw a wearing my mother’s cloth

As I ran towards her spot in the area

A bike crossed in between my laps

As if I was a giant terrorist

On Thursday

Rain began to wet my inner mind

As though nothing initiated my part

When I tried to avoid drizzling in the rain

An umbrella came to shelter my comfort

Immediately the rain ran to another place without a single trace of water droplet

On Friday ,

Morning and evening just cliffed together

As though, they where rounding up minutes

making the minutes to hours without blame

Then ,I asked myself what did I achieve

Suddenly ,an angel appeared to me in a dream

‘’Don’t let your dreams carry you away’’

On Saturday ,

Morning when I wanted to wash my clothes

Immediately, I remembered my old friends

Who never called my cell phone number

But they were always my tight friends

Then I had to cut them off my line

After a while, the phone began to beep

On Sunday ,

At the church, I was pronounced a pastor

Not knowing that I was about to control the congregation

Something came into my innermost being

Telling me to forsake the assembles of unbelievers and hypocrites that will bring wealth to your disposal

But I tried to avoid them , instead they kept coming back to my corridor for help

Next day, I woke up in another mood, it was saint valentine on this month of February.

Ubong Abasi

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GOOD

Goody two shoes

A black kettle rose

With its bottom glued

To a cushion

Into a field of maize

To hit a stalk.

The butterflies flew higher

To the sky

Missing the kettle

As it rushed past

The garden of roses.

The moon looked like the sun

And goody two shoes crawled out

From the kettle to stare

At the world.

He was meant to be in a box

But he cheated death

Stood at ease

And looked like a teacher

To new borns.

Good two shoes went

In search of shoes

Unlike Batman who searched

For Batwoman’s identity

And met three strong sisters.

He is a boss baby, a do gooder,

He fell into many taking hands yet

He lacked nothing but shoes.

Abiola Bonuola

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GOOD

This is me

I am beautiful

I give bread to the poor

I am a correct application of knowledge and wisdom

I am a rod of correction

Word of truth, diligence, that’s me

Fear of God, understanding, wise counsel, honey comb, obedient ear……., you are referring to me

I’m a part

I’m a whole

Pursue me, find me, include me all round, then you’ve found meaning

Check in the mirror, do you see me?

Signs and symbols no longer signifies or points to me

I’m not a side attraction that helps you to reality

I’m reality

What is the difference between me and the opposite?

Find it and forget about the dual

I’m neither a duplication nor imitation

What I’m calling for, is for you to substitute signs and symbols of me for me

Forget about gigantic simulacrum, clashes of ideology, more information and less meaning

Hnmnmn, they are beautiful nonsense and can never be exchanged for me but for others

You barely know the difference between simulacrum and I

Stockpile whatever you’ve being through in a plain view

Stop fabricating me

It makes you belong to the realm of simulation

My name is good                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

WALE O. STEVEN

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THE UNCHARTED KINGDOM

The die is cast

I am called in fast

As a cast

In a movie

Title; last act.

As an advocate

I”m asked to reach out

To a king

In need of the knowing

Of things that exist

When existence exits

Then my lip dance

Refrain:

If you do good kingdom

O o o o

kingdom

O o o o

Kingdom's waiting for you

The song stops

Dancers stop

The king roars

His prey prays

For the kingdom come.

The dove is far

From a green snake

In a green grass

With a crown to bait

Surprise

My king is in a rage

His mind in a cage.

I try to engage

He renegades

So I ask

What kingdom awaits

What kingdom exits

That my king has not known,

That makes him fearfully quiver and shiver

Of his expected exit?

There is a kingdom beyond the clouds

It accommodates the sheep and the goats

Its entry visa

Your passport of deeds

Be good

do good!

Do good

Is this all the gods needs to undo my wrongs

Did my wrongs caused my coconut to break while twas been plucked

The future of the kingdom remains uncharted

I shall rise at the dawn of the day

 And do good till my eyes close in sleep.

Emmanuel 'DeMaverick' Ifeanyi

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A MISEDUCATION ON GOODNESS

Betrayers come with kisses
Home-wreckers come with striptease
Brutus stabbing from behind
A big smile, veiling vile
Thoughts, emotions and motives
Intentions like locomotives
Moving gradually
Slowly evolving
Natura non falcit suntum

Evil human nature truly doesn’t jump

"No man is good!"
I speak not as a feminist
A statement from a Man is what I repeat
For when Jesus said “no man is good"
Did He mean that He isn't good?
Or, that He isn't a man;
For to be good is to be loving
But Love is not an action, it's a Person
And no such person is a man
Therefore, Love is probably a woman

But not just any woman
Love is the woman you cheat on

And beat on in your all-week-sad drunkenness
Who has no iota of desire to stab you in your drunk-sleep-stark- naked mess

Such love is not all women

And not all women are that loving

Thus, I chew once again the cud of my words

Love can also be a man

Love is the man who died for his bride right before the wedding night

So, what gender is Love? Maybe Hermaphrodite!

Love is the Person that suffers long and suffers wrong
Without claiming damages in federal court
A person that evil prods and daily pokes
But still remains calm, collected and unprovoked
A person who bears all things, in joy unyeilding
Knowing it's just another political smooth-talk, but keeps believing
Love is not that blind lady groping around reading your deceptive braille lyrics
She sees your faults, she just ignores, and sees a better you beyond the gimmicks

Love is the beauty that fell in love with a beast in these guys

Love is the Man Jesus who died for a world that refused to be His wife

He stood against the seemingly good men of His region
Men who covered their own sins in long robes of religion,
Long prayers and selfish empty good deeds
Men whose hands are quick to cast stones at women caught in acts of adultery.
Hang your stones for a while, look and you will see
That the man whom she did 'it' with is roaming free
Justice belongs not in the hands of men such as this
Men who excuse the man in the mirror but accuse the woman on the T.V screen
Perverted men can never execute true justice
For they can only see through perverted lenses

So, Love is neither a man nor a woman,

Love is God

But not just any 'God’

Love is the God that is too righteous to ignore sins

Yet too merciful to punish the sinners

That kind of God revealed to us in the Man Jesus

“For vengeance is Mine” says the Lord

But when it was time to take vengeance

He took it upon Himself and no one else

Yes, to be good is to love, like the Man we call God

Yet, not a religious God-

The one you can manipulate, twist and turn with your seemingly good deeds

For Love looks into the heart, beyond your acts, down to your motives.

An activist once gave his body to be burnt for the people

We idolize him unaware he was just trying to be a hero

What if the condemned robber did it just to feed his starving family?

What if Jack died for Rose just so he could star in Titanic's story?

What if the terrorist was simply protecting his homeland from imperialists?

So, next time you judge, don’t be so quick to conclude,

There is more to being good than just doing good

Tolu Daniel ©