POEMS READ AT THE LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 9 EPISODE 9 DEEP

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

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

  ‘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.

MISAN OGBE

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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

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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