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| Joy Chime - Winner Poem of the Month |
TO-DO
LIST (poem
of the month)
I.
This is how you fall in love:
Conversations after 10pm till after 1am
about what God smells like:
Freshly cut grass in rainy season
Or a freshly bathed baby.
This is how you come undone:
A mostly one-sided conversation,
Remarkable in its (unusual) politeness,
Informing you that you can strangle your hopes
And drown your dreams now.
You are not Joseph, you see.
II.
To come undone.
But to know,
Truly,
Verily,
Honestly,
Undoubtedly,
That you will be just fine.
So, between 'undone' and 'just fine',
Breathe.
III.
In that place between 'undone' and 'just
fine',
I breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Weep.
Out.
Hold.
Sob.
Out.
Out.
In.
I breathe through the cracks in my resolve to be
strong,
to bend and not break.
I breathe in the unnamed scent of my Eternal
Lover,
His arm around my neck,
lips pressed to my forehead for comfort,
for assurance,
for strength.
I breathe in the joy that comes in the
morning,
Breathe out the scabs as I heal,
Breathe in Ewaenose's outrage
at the audacity of the polite hearbreaker,
Breathe out the scabs as I heal,
Breathe in Mimi's hug across the miles,
Breathe out the scabs as I heal.
In.
Out.
Joy
Chime
/////////////////////////////
DEEP
Deep, dept, deepest
end
Deep breath,
shallow breath
Full of meaning, feelings
so intense
Deeper than the
surging sea
Climbs and descends
like an ocean of flames
Moving where the
wind blows and mercilessly
With different
faces and colour shades
Filled with
emotions difficult to read
Like a heart filled
with sorrow
With joy, have no
friend
Moves with the
earth
Difficult to
comprehend
Difficult to
understand
But forced to live
with
Gathers momentum on
the move
Whispers genteelly
but loud
Reaches beyond
boarders
Takes no prisoners
Spears no thoughts
for victims
Mirrors our lives,
thoughts and actions
Pushes us beyond
limit
Tests our endurance
Deep down we know
who we are
We know our
strengths, our weaknesses
Rise up and the
deepest end fades away
It is in the mind.
Chika
Nnamani
///////////////////////////////////
UNKNOWN
A distressed
fetus of an unfaithful woman
Grows
nonetheless.
The fresh
scent of gossip quicken its heartbeat
When you
talked about how he removed your underlings
Even from
the phone lines.
Deeper than
the eyes can see
are the
private incisions that helped her opening
when she
suddenly pushed you out
before you
were ready for this world of sin
but she had
to,
for the
confinement of the months
told a story
that the mouth cannot speak of!
Ololade Ajayi
//////////////////////////////
IN
THE RAIN
I stood in the rain
This morning, hoping that
The blaze of this week's fury
And the sorrows in its company
Could turn a fictional tale
I stood in the rain
With my eyes tightly shut
While I soar into the sky
So I could beseech the rain
To wash away the pain and agony
I stood in the rain
With my hands lifted up
Narked at the abysmal uprising
Within the confines of the nation
Whilst her loathsome government
Wallow in their turpitude
I stood in the rain
Drenched by its drizzle
Wishing June was drenched in May
So that it does not acclimatize
Itself to incessant bloodshed
Cos the scars of the pain
Lingers in our heart.
Heaven
“Heavenscribbles...” Kalu
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
DEEP
The depths of the sea
and of the mind
The depths of relationships
Building bridges across
deep rivers
Counsel in the heart
Hidden treasures in deep
darkness
The depth of under standing
rather than over sitting as
the poet Zephaniah, not prophet
will have it-
need plumbing!
These depths-
need plumbing;
engineering not layering
and lawyering
Need researching, canvassing, confronting, discussing, not
cantankerous contumacious
conniving!
Plumbing-
cleaning pipes,
digging around, removing
impediments to proper
implementation;
generating flow!
The deep dyed depths need flow
Flowing through; flowing together
The rivers of living waters;
the well in the waters;
The flow of prophetic words causing
axe heads to float
at the place and point the axe fell!
Knowing which way the fish will bite
at the coming of the given word!
The flow-flush of latrine-like
mental plumbing in the depths
of conscious- unconsciousness!
Plumbing the barrel at such depth that your head becomes the depth
on which the barrel rests
Picture the destitution-desolation
of such a scenario
Arising like a phoenix at the end!
Yes!
Phoenix's don't arise from the deep
Except the deep fires of Auschwitz
The deep waters from which Bond girls arise with dramatic
effect
Usually it is Leviathans that do.
Sometimes dragged by the teeth in the Deity's drastic image
shared with Job
But out of the deep- arisings!
Arising with illumination from the deep wells of
contemplation, meditation, reflection, cogitation- Selah!
The word becoming flesh after serial mastication- gendering,
generating growth-
Bearing witness of time, times and half spent in the deep
Having Frankl-like epiphanies!
Out of the deep formulating concepts, developing theories
Changing nature; nurturing change
As witness Sadat, Nkrumah,
Mandela, the Mahatma, our own Awo!
Out of the filthy, fetid pits brimming
with faecsl matter coming
up as Frankl with logotherapy
Remember Joseph sold to traders
out of the deep;
Jonah!
Jonah in the whale's belly
Buried in the deep sea
A guest for three days
Did he die
Or was it just poetry?
Just pretty talk from way
beyond the pale
He rose with wisdom.
From the deep, came
obedience
Grudging, but compliant!
And we posit that from
the deep we learn!
From the deep places in our
hearts and lives we learn harmony
and play in the symphony that
resonates with the music of
the ages
We enter the restfulness
engendered
by mature contemplation
We parlay our stories into
a monument to wisdom
We keep the main thing
We are centred!
Andrew Whyte
//////////////////////////////////////////
'THE RANGE D'
He
roams the streets clothed in Eden
Talking
to no one
No
one but himself
Yet
the guy who runs
The
kiosk at the corner bids him for words in numbers
Perhaps,
with that
He
bids the gods
To
cause cowries to rain on him.
I
have seen the sane
Banking
on the deranged
I
have seen the deranged reasons better than the sane
I
have seen the deranged
In
the toga of sanity Prophesies to the sane
I
have seen the sane
On
all four
In
reverence to the deranged
Beckoning
for words
A
message
A
signal
From
the other climes
I
have seen the sane
Appeasing
the deranged
Mortal
men! Mortal gullibility!
I
have seen the sane
Trail
the deranged
For
a lay
For
bowls of milk
And
gold.
I
have seen the ‘hallowed jah'
And
his red on red hounds
As
I journey towards the 'white village'
I
have seen the 'má jẹ́ pò má jẹ́ yó'
Baptizer
deep in the wilderness along Ibadan
I
have seen the fourth-day returnee
brother
of Martha and his
Uniformed
miracle seekers of Bethany
I
have seen the bald and bar reverend
And
his bearded gang
I
have seen men
Men
who should take up
Permanent
residency at the deep end of Yaba
Roam
freely on the floors of the chambers
I
have heard of the guy
Who
dwells under a cliff and owns
A
ford full of flesh and fresh by night
I
have heard of 'Jésù' the 'only' one of 'oyingbo'
And
I have walked the street of Immanu
To
behold the desolation of ‘Bán-bí-lòun’
Just
like I have heard of 'olè ìfọ'
I
have seen the faith merchandisers
The
Old! And the New!
The
compelling male
And
the impelling female
They
count their blessings in currency
Hard
currencies
Indeed,
I have seen
The
sane bow to the deranged in superstitious reverence.
And
I have seen men –a mere mortal, bask arrogantly in ignorance
While
courting gullibility.
Have
you?
-Amami H.
/////////////////////////////////////
HOW
DEEP ARE YOU?
This is not a poem
This is a conversation
A conversation that begins with
these lines
But will end in your mind.
It will stir you up in quiet nights
Kick your mind when it’s too lazy to
fight
For in these lines you will find
redemption.
So, pause, this conversation is the
beginning.
There are 10 billion bicycles in Beijing
There is 1 mind with which you think
I’d like to have a penny for your
thoughts
2 for your words
So I can scrummage through the 66
pages of your rampaging mind
Dig through the blackness thereof so
I can find
Gold, platinum, coal, diamond.
Would you mind my mind in your mind?
See, I have seen enough shallowness
to know
That an empty mind can drown a
thoughtless soul
And leave it breathless gasping for
the air that makes great minds glow.
For the depths of a man’s mind are
not evident by the size of his head
They are not found in the depths of
his pocket.
The depths of a man’s mind are
expressed
In the conversations he has with
himself
Felt in the rhythms with which his
soul serenades
Stringing thoughts like notes on a
guitar
Building systems with his thoughts
in the distance
This stance he stands staring into
the horizon, in his mind.
For in the depths of his mind
Governments have fallen
The sun has blackened
Jesus has risen, the Romans didn’t
believe it
The river has parted, with stepping
stones beneath it
Inventions have happened, his mind
in the driving seat
He has found salvation, purpose, his
mind no more comatose
I told you, redemption!
So here, have it, your penny back,
for your thoughts
In the end, what is their worth?
For what price would you trade your
thoughts?
For what prize would you betray your
thoughts?
The mind is the series of lines from
which the bridge of the world
Is suspended, expanded, deflated,
ended.
So, pause, think, what do you now
think about what you think?
There are 10 billion bicycles in
Beijing
There is 1 mind with which you think
How deep are you?
This conversation is not ended
T.I.M.
////////////////////////////////////
LOST
Without making a sound
You laughed out loud
Mocking surrounding love
Clear skies were above
Yet
In your eyes rolled thunderclouds
Your heart bleeds
With wants and needs
Unplanted seeds
Deep emotional rain
Scorches your brain
Burning you up
Yet
You looked like a buttercup
Gentle and calm
Like some sort of visual balm
With listening ears
You calmed fears
Wiped away tears
Yet
You cried over there
Called out to us here
No one seemed to hear
So you held on to air
Nobody was near
If only we saw the rear
Of your happy glow
We didn't expect the blow
The questions come
Now you are gone
Depression won
Yet
You are not the only one.
Erhio
///////////////////////////////
ABEIGI
Father...
father
Can you hear the rolling of the bell,
From the road that passes through the centre of hell?
...
Odim's fears danced in yesterday' deja vu,
And his prayers drowned in bloody mull of self-pity.
This was a man that had once tasted the skies,
Juggled the thunder like fortune coin tied to play strings.
I have never seen speaking eyes like His;
Mystically gold with tiny green speckles
Scattered to the nines, like green springs
That mirrors your sheltered depth softly but profound.
He is not my Love story. No! No...
But my note to Love and vain
Echoes of spirited songs from the tree trunks
Perceived only by the village scape goat
Down the trail of the sacred alter of propitiation
Fluttering into the devil's gape-
Wide eyed and a pounding heart
Yet with gallant steps like that of sango.
Given wings, he would fly even faster
Into the Beautiful black embrace of death.
This is the dilemma of a million words
Searching for the simplenesses in a veiled wink.
When you pray for rain
You have to deal with the mud
Odim had kissed the chin of dark saints,
For he grubbed the vain eating of Solomon.
One thousand but One bride he sought,
To raise his Love a tower in the Sun.
But her heart had stumbled long ago
For that unvarnished fellow with golden green speckled eyes.
Now his Love and vain were hollowed illusion
For the devil came to collect!
Father... Father
The tears from the eagles eyes overflows
For It hears the solidarity of hearts in the low.
-Amar Basil
Can you hear the rolling of the bell,
From the road that passes through the centre of hell?
...
Odim's fears danced in yesterday' deja vu,
And his prayers drowned in bloody mull of self-pity.
This was a man that had once tasted the skies,
Juggled the thunder like fortune coin tied to play strings.
I have never seen speaking eyes like His;
Mystically gold with tiny green speckles
Scattered to the nines, like green springs
That mirrors your sheltered depth softly but profound.
He is not my Love story. No! No...
But my note to Love and vain
Echoes of spirited songs from the tree trunks
Perceived only by the village scape goat
Down the trail of the sacred alter of propitiation
Fluttering into the devil's gape-
Wide eyed and a pounding heart
Yet with gallant steps like that of sango.
Given wings, he would fly even faster
Into the Beautiful black embrace of death.
This is the dilemma of a million words
Searching for the simplenesses in a veiled wink.
When you pray for rain
You have to deal with the mud
Odim had kissed the chin of dark saints,
For he grubbed the vain eating of Solomon.
One thousand but One bride he sought,
To raise his Love a tower in the Sun.
But her heart had stumbled long ago
For that unvarnished fellow with golden green speckled eyes.
Now his Love and vain were hollowed illusion
For the devil came to collect!
Father... Father
The tears from the eagles eyes overflows
For It hears the solidarity of hearts in the low.
-Amar Basil
//////////////////////////////////////////////
‘RANDOM
THOUGHTS’
There
is a thirst not of water o!
But
the thirst for red liquid in our veins,
Vampires
in human clothing lie in wait.
We
are experiencing a period of creative drought,
Only
toxic fear fills the air,
Why
do we choose to breathe them in?
Do
they not choke the humanity of our minds?
We
inhale toxins to poison the reason we live,
Our
hearts are drenched with despair,
With
what is damaged, is any yet to be repaired?
We
are so soaked with wet dews of anger,
As if
we will yield crops that would quiet our grumbling bellies,
We
fill our minds with venom of discord and animosity,
As if
we won’t all get bitten if the snakes of violence roam free,
Well
at least we would all try to look up for a statue of copper snake,
If
that one is not even lost to the winds,
Our
grumbling bellies crave for the manna we despise,
But
the maggots already reign supreme,
Waiting
in line to scavenge our bodies,
We
splash our doorpost with the blood of our children,
And
then pray that the Angel of death overlook us all,
Well
we would soon know if our choice of violence gives birth to newborns from the
grave.
/////////////////////////
Asapen
@Akinyemi
Akinmusire
/////////////////////////////////
A
PEEP INTO THE DEEP
In the Milky Way lies a speck
A speck of dust in the universe
No more than a particle
A particle within a quark yet to be discovered
in an atom
That my fellow insignificant fellow
Is our home away from home
Within each cell lies a universe waiting to be
discovered
How many generations before the demise of their
mother
The cosmic clock ticks in light years
Within each light minute are thousands of unborn
earth years
The three quarks within is just the beginning
Within each quark lies a universe waiting
Today we live in shadows
Those who will survive and evolve
They will live a shadowless existence
Ifeanyi
Okwosha
////////////////////////////////////////////
HOW
TO MAKE EXCUSES WHEN YOUR LOVER IS A SHARK
close your eyes and call him a survivor
all the blood you see on the
surface of the water is not his
so remain blind as you part your lips
to taste his mouth,
you don't want to see a thousand white things
that are sharp and sometimes bite
this is how you choose to define love:
a tease, a dare
and a bluff
hold his fin firmly and listen to your heart
it is because you are nervous
that is why he is slipping
hold him close
you can’t lose this one
the world does not
tolerate single sisters and society says
you are not enough anymore
(because time is your esteem draining away)
so never let go when he drags you underwater
you have trusted him this far
he can't be trying to drown you
maybe you can breathe
(they say women can adapt)
in a sea of everything wrong
because love is blindly right
and death is a myth and
bad boys love better
if anyone shouts and says you should be careful
that no woman should love a shark
that sharks are men with fragile egos,
tell them you know him
and even though on some days
he loses his temper and uses words and fist
to express his rage,
he always apologises for breaking you
so when you fall deeper in water with him,
learn to understand a man with privilege
and if those bitter feminists still talk,
tell them it is your life and
you have chosen to live it
at the bottom of a raging sea
when you kiss him
always remember to never forget
that it is till death do you part
when you see pieces of women
and bones of girls lying on the seabed,
it means nothing
(tell yourself that)
no man eats a woman
they just dissolve in his mouth
and become an excuse
for his righteous anger
Joshua Omena
////////////////////////////////////////
IF NIGERIA WAS A BOOK
In the beginning
There were words
Words that came together in rhythmic embrace
To give birth to sentences
Sentences that paragraphs
That birthed pages after pages of this
book called life
let me tell you a story
the story of a land so vast
her people speak in tongues
they build monument and towers
out of their doubts
hoping they would find salvation
in something much more than the silence of God
so they turn to the gushing sound
of blood escaping thirsty throats
the resounding cackle of skulls
cracking and caving to the hammers of segregation
and extremism
they seek to find their God in
the not yet developed nipples of schools girls
In the beginning before the beginning
There was silence
The same kind of silence our mothers exchanged
their wedding gowns for
because their mothers told them to
Never speak while your husband is talking
Or before he starts talking or after he has
finished talking
Because the mothers of their mothers told their
mothers to do the same thing too
If he's a raging elephant, then you should be
the submissive grass he tramples upon for life
Here our cultural norms are served with shackles
instead plates
Let me tell you a story
The story of a land, mysterious
where the living die for the death of dead
things
and the dead,
they thought they would find peace in their rest
only to discover that hell is just a metaphor
and heaven is a hundred feet beneath the ground
The living are dying to leave
The dead gather at the break of dawn
To mourn the live they never lived
Truth, Valar Moghulis
All men shall die
Tragic
But not all men that are dead have lived
In the beginning before the beginning of the
beginning
There were words
Words that are constantly on the headlines of
national dailies
Words that are title of books whose authors are
now behind bars
Or have been behind bars or
Are going to be behind bars
I'm not talking chocolate bars
These lines are not meant to entertain you
Does this story sound familiar
It is the same story my grandfather told
So they called it his story
But my people never
My people never learn
And history never really says goodbye
It is a continuous cycle of see you laters
These lines shouldn't be packed full with
punchlines
Before they know you out of this ring
Think outside the box
Not all rings are cyclical.
A
Let me tell you a story
The story of 300 girls
And the kind in the north
Scheming politicians and king makers with
littlefingers
Celebrated theifs and chief looters
Who needs a job here
When even monkeys are now getting alerts
Snakes are very corny
So you never know what is lying in their belly
Shawty might have just eaten a million dollars
In the beginning before the beginning of the
beginning
There were stories
And skies that never stopped weeping
Stories of mothers who wrote whole collections
With nothing but the broken pieces of their
bones as pen
And the tears from their sunken eyes as ink
The story of fathers who planned funerals for
empty caskets
Brothers who wore their griefs like a factory
fitted battle armour
Sisters whose tears watered entire civilizations
into ruin
Whose hurt are fertile enough to grow the
Amazonia rain forest into a desert
If this story was a book
It would obviously be titled Nigeria
But if Nigeria was a book
You would be the sole author of it's pages
You could place the widest smile your face could
accommodate as the preface
These days, you don't even need words to write a
book
If Nigeria was a book
You could write away this decay
With the light in your heart
The resilience that keeps you moving
Regradless of how many times you fall
With love, you could rewrite this pages of tears
into a laughter filled happily ever after
If Nigeria was a book
What would you write.
Ajijola Habeeb
////////////////////////////////////////
TO
SET OUT IS TO GO DEEP
(Some risks are just a good
way of learning safety)
At the set out
We know this is a good trip
On bad asphalt...
The body of this black mat
Was bruised by the round rubber of pulls.
The side girdle
-Culverts
Is a self invitation to free falls
And the bellowing water bodies
Called on Us
To embrace their burdened body.
Bridges
Of worries
Piled itself upon this wanting mind.
We tarried long on this mountain of dependent.
Before we get to freedom
A countless bout we fight forth
-Hands relaxed
Muscles flexed
And heart panting in parting away.
Thoughts killed inspiration to another birth
At the corridors of our mild mind.
We taught it was childish for an adult
To learn the game of the elders.
We never wait to get to a road
Before we crossed it.
We had always be learning the crossing
The merging of numbers
To form an answers
Seductive to questions.
The bringing to bear with one another.
Two closed friend were always enemy on good
deeds.
We got the trait of a blindness
From the fathers that were not hours
And From the Mother that was yet a lady.
Before the eye of father opens
A thousand year it took him
"To Kiss Your bride",
And the soul of the invitee tarries Long in
waiting for helping hands
Like a locomotor
Dead at the sight of lubricants.
ABIODUN
ONATOLA
///////////////////////////////////////
YOU
SAW IT
You saw it first
You would have been unhappy
She didn’t know
But you saw it
First
And left
You would have been unhappy
You knew it
But
From what moment?
That altercation?
The one that altered your position
As head
And later
On the bed?
What moment?
The moment you withdrew
And stared at her
Like an intruder was beside you?
You saw it
The fraud of it all
The woman you married
It wasn’t her
She wasn’t her
The one
She wasn’t the one you had dreamed of
So you left
Before it became too hard to love
Her
You backed away
You gave her pity
Pity in your face
And pity in your story
Of how you had to go
Because she deserved
Castles in the air
And you had none
You saw it
You knew
That this was not enough
Those attempts she made to fit
Into you
You saw into her
Saw how her eyeballs followed you
And rested with awe on you
It scared you
Her adulation of you
You left
Because it was all too much
The pretense
The applause you rendered
Half-hearted love
You gave with that corner of your heart
That wasn’t taken
Stricken by poverty
And power
and
Desire
To be
Everything
Except
Hers
You knew it
That you would not stay
You hoped that your need
Would stride along with her
That it would co-exist
Alas
It overtook her
In wonder you turned your eyes
Towards heaven
And said
Your stars weren’t crossed
Your pity and apology
Apoplectically served
In tacos
Those delicious ones you made
Just before
The talk
You saw it
That moment she said to you
“I am the neck
I won’t break”
You panicked
‘Cause you knew
That when the moon came out
And the wolf in you was summoned out
You would tear off all hindering garments
And run out to feed
So
You left
The moon is out
And your need
Has to be fed
So
While she was packing her bags
In frenzy
Hands shaking slightly
Seeking to be brave
Searching for hope
In the dark
The dawn of your declaration
While she was planting feverishly
In the plantations of prayer
You had seen
That this day would come
You had known
That you would leave
All that was really left
Was for her to see it
And she did
She looked into wolf eyes
Saw the hunger
Heard the call of the pack
Your pack
Swept her heart off the tarmac
And slowly
Ever so slowly
Made her way to me
Signed
The man who loved her after you left
Kemibon
//////////////////
RUMPLESTILTSKIN
They call that beautiful
The passion of a woman scorned
The pain in her eyes
The curse that she plays
The mystery in her drunken sleep
They call her beauty
Toes touched rug
Hands flew high
Her countenance was not so sleepy
They call him the dark one
Peeped through window sills
In search of good deals
Sleeping Beauty had killed
Killed
poor Goody Two Shoes knees
They call that dark
Rumplestiltskin alarmed
Slipped through the window
Raised a wand to Goody Two Shoes toes
And together they both disappeared.
On this day, he wasn’t so dark.
They call her sleeping
She was sleep walking
And so she continued
To kill the rug that was left behind.
Abiola Bonuola
///////////////////////////////////////////////
TEHOM
Come let us take a gripping journey
into an alternate past,
into alternate landscapes
built with ancillary geometry;
let us find the door into a stone.
Come find me in the river
I have gone down to pray,
for what the sea wants,
the river has in abundance;
let us go into the heart of nowhere.
Come with your verbiage of beauty,
come daughter of the primordial earth,
come out of the grave,
you can’t get fat from swallowing darkness;
there is no protein in the marrows of
nightmares.
Come to the Sabbath,
put away your strange fire,
the rite of darkness has ended, the obedient
will not be burnt.
Come let us break the silence of crows with
sugar blues,
let us contain the tyranny of silence with
the oblong shape of easy music.
Come now while the sun still hides behind thick
scrapes of cloud,
unleash your red, the scarlet thing in you,
we will know no more the misfortune of virtues,
we children of the apocalypse, the naked and the
dead;
let us make snail love to opera.
Come meet me there where the waves still dance
at river mouth,
the leaves are prone again, tendrils stretched,
lusting after light;
children of the night seeking stairways into
heaven.
Beautiful secrets all coming back, reminders of
sweet November
and the making of cinders from true intentions.
Come Lisa, lady with indigo eyes,
meet me by the river where I have gone to
re-negotiate manhood;
I am done waiting for their god to fill the void
that never existed.
Tonight, let us make love from memory; and
tomorrow at the crossroads,
we will feed the fertile dead with our
nothingness and rid love of its bad name.
Soonest
Nathaniel
/////////////////////////////////////////////
SNATCHED
IN OUR PRIME
Gone are the days of dusk and dawn.
Now, we languidly journey through seconds as
they roll into minutes, and these into hours.
Gone are the days we awoke to symphonies from
birds leaping from tree to tree.
Now, we are woken by our heavy hearts and the
ticking clock from behind our minds.
Gone are the days the thoughts of home elicited
hope for our aching hearts
Now, home is but a blurry illusion of what we
once had and now long for.
Gone are the days the thoughts of home evoked
the sound of toddlers feet and scents of burning wood.
Now, to think of home is to be once again faced
with the agonising wails of our Mothers as they pleaded with our captors.
To think of home is to be confronted with the
blackened remains of everything we once called ours.
Gone are the days we boldly wore Freedom like
ornaments round our necks.
Now, our hands, joined by chains, dangle
aimlessly at our sides.
Gone are the days our bodies belonged to us.
The days we read the holy book that pronounced
our bodies the creator’s temple
Now here we are, helpless and hopeless;
These same temples, taken by unknown men.
Now, we stifle screams of pain as
Our womanhood is torn to shreds by progenies of
our very captors.
Gone are the days, we hoped and silently prayed
we had been plunged into nightmares that would dissipate the moment dawn came
peaking from beneath the dark skies.
Now, we are resigned to this cruel fate that
snatched our youth, our pride and our bodies.
This cruel fate that turned us old women in our
prime.
©Ohikhuare
Honour Chiagozie
@Avahnora
/////////////////////////////////////////////
SIMPLICITY
IS NEVER EASY
It is bringing down Babel sized ideas to the
babbles of babes.
To the most basic forms
And if you can,
break them some more.
It is a simple complexity
Simply because complexity is simple.
But things are not as they seem,
For unseemly things could hold seas hidden at its seams.
And that's deep,
But these stolen lines are a shallow
Attempt at seeming wise
Because they would never hold intentions of its progenitor.
Enjoy this simple complexity.
Shallow seeming sentences could hold deep truth
And deep sentences, ankle deep.
To the most basic forms
And if you can,
break them some more.
It is a simple complexity
Simply because complexity is simple.
But things are not as they seem,
For unseemly things could hold seas hidden at its seams.
And that's deep,
But these stolen lines are a shallow
Attempt at seeming wise
Because they would never hold intentions of its progenitor.
Enjoy this simple complexity.
Shallow seeming sentences could hold deep truth
And deep sentences, ankle deep.
MISAN
OGBE
/////////////////////////////////////
DEEP:
A Visual Grammar
Sacred Door
Let your every heartbeat knock at
a door of the universe of your life.
Knock upon yourself as upon a Holy door,
and work upon yourself as on a new path.
And from the deep within the higher silences,
echo forth a newfound name.
Keep Digging
dig your own Well in the backyard
of yourself. Never stop, unless to
catch a breath or wipe off a sweat
somewhere deep down this daunting
depths: you, awaiting your arrival.
Elliptical Glory
forge my tongue upon the anvil of
eloquence; teach me, teach me
pillars of ancient skies be my anchor
on the water’s edge, hold me
Work upon my life like
a garden of rainbows
Storey Mountain
as age lengthens its shadow
and centuries sink into memories
stand upon your achievements as
upon a new decking, see the vision
of your unspent self. Live again
as an indelible note on divinity’s lips
Be a door, a Well, and a rainbow’s garden
will you?
Achile Umameh
///////////////////////////////////////////
DEEP
Drag your ragged emotions into the deep and
drown them there
These emotions like a bride who took your breath
away and lay it bare
Are now like a wife who holds your breath in
terror where you lay
All you wanted to do was catch every one of her
tears
And apologize to each one for making them fall
from their perches
Now all you do is stare affection in the face as
it leaves
And wish you had offered her better versions of
truth
But it is not too late
Scream your contrition into this deep void that
is her eyes
Maybe an echo will grudgingly return
You know love is between the heart and the head
And like an empty pot of oil there will always
be a residue
And that will be more than you deserve for your
treacherous trip into the deep
Chisom
