POEMS READ AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 9 EPISODE 11 FARE

Winner Poem of the Month Tobi "Bestlines" Best (the lady)

DARK SILENCE (Poem of the month)

Ilesanmi
Can you hear me scream
I am not fit
For this street

My flower blossomed 
Till I left your bosom
All is obnoxious
I am not wholesome

Ilesanmi 
Can you hear me scream
I am not fit
For this heat

I have turned purple 
Like Amanda's hibiscus
My thoughts are promiscuous
My troubles tripled
As my days doubled

Ilesanmi
Can you hear me scream
I  am not fit
For this seat

I miss your porridge
Your peaceful carriage
Gave me courage
On a clean page

Ilesanmi 
Can you hear me scream
I am not fit
For this pit

I have a splitting headache
I need some cup cakes
The ones with chocolate
At least I would enjoy my plate

Ilesanmi
Can you hear me scream
I  am not fit
For this shit

Should I break my sim
And start afresh
Chances are slim
I would have a flesh

Ilesanmi
Give me a reply
How can I survive
Without you advice

Ilesanmi
Can you hear me scream
I can't swim
In this stream.

_Bestlines

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ALL’S FAIR FOR A FARE

I sat in a jalopy,

A rambunctious contraption,

I listened to the untamed cacophony

Of belligerent savants,

You could feel the despair in their worn voices.

I sat by the window,

Stale air made me an unwilling Philistine,

The boisterous madame that sat beside me,

A benign malevolence on her decrepit face,

She lent me more tortuous aroma from her bushel,

Deep beneath her ample pits,

She was the undisputed Speaker of the parliament,

"my husband lost his job, because of this damn government!"

She enthused, in her brusque manner,

Others derided the Upstart in the Babel towers,

Their invectives would make a poet blanch,

No man receives an inundation of

Grievous praise and deny his sanity.

The conductor raised a hand,

In a gesture of enunciation,

pleading for the seated orchestra,

To render him rapturous fidelity,

"Where's your fare!bring out your fare!

I don't want to hear story! I am not Sai Baba!"

My infernal neighbor became more exasperating,

"so, this government no dey worry you abi? Na so so money you dey find!"

I pondered on her facetiousness.

Life is a fare, we all pay a price for the fare.

Like Marc Antony's latent profligacy:

"Friends, Countrymen, ...I come not to bury Ceasar,

..or to praise him... The evil that men do surely live with them"

Life is a fare. We pay a price to be one of two

Greater evils:

Good or bad.

Good is profligate.

Bad is an orphan choice.

"Abeg, bring your fare! na me be sai baba? na me be government?

I go show you if you no pay!" the conductor rendered his dénouement.

I shrugged in a poetic dismissal.

Life is a fare.

We pay a fare to redemption or

Serendipity.

Life isn't fair, yet its poetic motif

Cries for abdication of

Platitudes to presumptions.

I paid my fare, and endured the unfairness

Of a wench's putrid emancipation.

All fair's for a Fare,

Yet, I find myself an unwilling

Judas in an epilogue to a macabre

Dance of idiocy.

I sighed a Daniel's prayer.

Teddy Ugonna

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

"IF THE CAP FIT"

Sometimes, things don't go the way we want

Other times it's about our needs & wants

Life is not fair you'd say

And it is never fair is just an hearsay 

But have you experienced it enough?

Or do you just assume you've had enough

Our lives are an aggregate of our decision 

Yet we forget the place of our perception 

Cos we can barely feed through the day

As we hope for another better day

Even in the dark aisles ahead of us

We still believe the lies at the end of it all

Life is always fair but people aren't

Life is always beautiful but people aren't 

Life is never wicked but people are 

Life is never cruel but people are

Life is sweet but people are sour

Life is good but people are bad

I feel the government hasn't changed 

Yet I don't see where I fit into the change 

When all I think about is my interest 

Who cares if other things are laid to rest

At least it will be said that I played my part

Even though its not the right path 

Whatever it is that suits you the most 

Whatever it is that makes you happy 

However you feel you can achieve it

However you think it's best for you 

If the cap fit...

Just go on and wear it!

Heavenscribbles...

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

WHO TOLD YOU

“The earth did not move beneath her feet, 

neither did everything freeze when you saw her stare at him.

Please, don’t mistake her stoic expression, 

emotionless, straight faced-ness for a sign post that reads:

“I am strong, and my heart cannot be broken”

Don’t mistake energetic stage performances, 

social activism, resounding applauses 

for a sign post that reads:

“I am strong, and my heart cannot be broken”

When she looked away,

Skies shifted,

Trees fell,

Thunder swept through the streets 

and I knew that she would walk out of that room,

Smiling; 

Who told you that broken hearts carry a placard on their foreheads?

Who told you that smiling faces have not had rainy nights?

Who told you that her teeth were not masquerading the memory of hands on her body?

Hands moving, 

up down

Rhythm

And like a dance

Her eyes were open

Pleading for this game of thrones to end.

To leave, or not to leave 

Feet firmly rooted 

Yet knuckles scream for the door

For to run 

Would set an alarm that 

Would haunt your night.

    

How does she do it?

So this poem is not for you who looked on and saw nothingness

Not for you who pitch yourself, perfectly judging with every blink,

It’s for them 

That have bound their wounds in layers of makeup,

Pushed undo, undo, but the mouse stopped clicking.

Tried delete, but the recycle bin refused to empty and the pain, like a tattoo would not be washed away by simple baths here and there.

Still hurts,

I know.

For you whose eyes are heavy from all the things you’ve seen and would not speak of.

For you, “unfixable”, let’s have a conversation, let me blood bath and raise beauty from your ash. I don’t brag or judge, only baptise in love

By the way, if you think words are awkward, I like silent conversations that take place in the head too.

We could at least start with that.

This one is for you, my love.”

Victory Osas

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

POT OF SOUL

My soul!

Oh! My soul!

So fired up till so high you rise

Stretching out like fine rice

The lids cannot hold you now

Like the day at sun down

A burning passion is felt

holding dreams like a belt

Fueling the sacrificial fare

This heat is yours alone to bare

A pot of soul cooked well

Heated by pain and hell

Will serve many generations

Feeding little seeds of passion

Oh! My soul!

Rise on like the growing desert sun

Olamide ‘Lario Stylz’ Santos

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

    WALK IN THE RAIN

I walked the steps of my father today,

I worked till I froze and my face turned grey

And all of my fingers calloused and worn to the bone,

And I felt like a child in a world full of men

Trying to capture something as strong as an ox but slowly turning to stone.

Walking away from this cold room dark and grey

Smoke hangs in clouds and the old echo plays

The music is soft

And the voice it is hushed

And the boy he has loved

And the man he has lost.....

I felt the touch of my mother today pushing me rapaciously,

And I'm clutching at fingers through crumples & creases,

I came to my senses, it cut me to pieces cause I needed more but I was pulled away,

I walked alone with these legs made of stone always dry, but I'm almost home.

In the photographs I smiled cause I'm still someone's child.

My place it is set

So I'll stay for a while

Till I walk out in the rain

Like water would stain

But I'll be born all over again.....

EliasgibsStyle

        EliasgibsWrites

                 

               ©Eliasgibs

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

‘IS THIS FARE FAIR?’

Life sojourn,

Starts as a race,

And only one out of the millions of gamete,

Hits a bull eye,

To fecundate an ovum,

To create a miracle of life,

To make YOU!

This journey which fare you didn’t pay,

But a ticket magnanimous than a golden buzzer you were given,

Your cries evoke emotions that words failed to ascribe.

Gradually a new dawn birthed,

Life asked for a new payment,

You had a fare to pay,

You were tenderly yoked in an egg shell,

Incubated to live your dreams,

To set dreams on sail to the stars,

To bask in the awe of the stars,

To create a universe that marvels even the Aliens,

To achieve new planets of milestones,

To illuminate the world better than the Sun,

To herald torrential rainfall of desires,

To paint the skies with rainbows of innovation,

To craft mountains and rocks with your studious hands,

To create an oasis in the oceans,

This fare was fair to pay.

This voyage however has juggernaut of challenges,

Windstorms of troubles,

Hailstones of anxieties,

Whirlwinds of despair,

Tornadoes of loss,

Typhoons of heartbreaks,

Tsunamis of disasters,

Hurricanes of distresses,

Pain that cuts deep into the fabric of the soul,

Icebergs of depression,

That drowns the great Titanic of dreams,

Every story has its scars,

Nights that chases sleep away,

Day that refuses to brighten,

This voyage seems not fair,

But its fare you have to pay.

You want to drown this ship on voyage,

You want to crash this flight,

You want to end it all,

A pill would do,

A plunge would be enough,

A pressure on the windpipe would just do,

Why???

Failed grades,

Heart broken,

Job lost,

Loved one lost,

Lost course,

Dreams shattered,

Depressed soul,

Wrong choices,

Hymen forcefully broken,…

Pause…

Is this fare fair?

Your universe don’t revolve around your grades,

Time heal the wounds of the heart,

What’s lost can be found,

True love still exist,

This tunnel herald a light at the end,

Embrace the fears,

You are the marvel of creation,

You are the envy of the universe,

You are the Remedy of broken hearts,

You are the gift of life,

Make life journey yours,

Give life a chance

You have a fare to pay,

Its fare might not be fair.

Asapen

Akinyemi Akinmusire

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

SWITCHING TRACKS

Johnny was drenched in sweat

Same way he was drowning in debt

He saw her as passed through the gate

He wasn't late yet he changed his gait

For there was still no proof

Mama had said 'Johnny you must move!

Lift a finger or pound a hoof

Pay your fare and get proof'

Hmmm Mama!

'I struggled to pay that fare

Yet it didn't take me anywhere

My mind crossed rivers from behind

Covering the distance from back there

To right here

And found out it's actually somewhere

Around anywhere but there

My thoughts are now in need of repair

Because I'm dangerously heading nowhere

Mama!'

Johnny sat down beside the wooden rack

He could feel her eyes roving round his back

'Mama don't look at me with disdain

For I'm not here to just complain'

He tried to explain

'Not all bumpy roads are worth the pain

Not all dark clouds harbour rain

They no longer value a good name

It's almost like they know no shame

Mama!

They switched to digital clocks

Yet we failed to leave the docks

They made candlesticks longer

Yet still failed to eradicate hunger

We gathered hay all day

Yet fail to gather enough to pay

Mama!'

Johnny could feel his back getting sore

So he knew the face Mama wore

'We need to find the bottom of that rainbow

Its time to end the tirade of bad shows

And raise the giant our ancestors know

Enough of these heart wrenching manifestations

Its time we relocate our final destination

Grey-hairs beware as we are now aware

We also care about our young fares

We need proof or we'll change the roof

And continue to change the roof

Our fares have to take us there

And silence these wails of despair'

Mama smiled in her rocking chair

Erhio

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

FARE-IN-HEIGHT

There is no precision

to the thermometry of existence,

so we invent: curiosity-in-glass.

and the neighbors die

from eating poisonous mushrooms.

My heart,

a frigorific mixture                                                

of ice, water and salt;

the nurse takes my temperature

and discovers how love is a composite number.

I have learnt to exist in equilibrium.

I was a protein unfolding,

gradually trying to change my habitat,

till that which was never lost refused

to be found.

So between

supply

& demand,

Change got stuck.

Blame it on corruption, on the cabal;

the day will always be for the jackal.

We live on reveries and memories,

we chant in our sleep: the revolution will be televised

yet we know there won’t be power supply

to witness even an episode of the melodrama;

we always get all of nothing.

Joy for us is an act,

Joy for us should have been an art

of resistance.

The fathers take selfies

while the children see ghosts.

No shame,

we are high on hope,

we paint a still life,

say life is still,

say still is life.

My computer has got a bad mind,

the machine is teaching my wife

new tricks with an old kitchen knife.

I don’t want her to sacrifice on that altar

the daughter dancing in the garden of my mind;

but whose blood then shall we spill upon the lintel of our door?

The angle may pass by our house tonight,

life is inevitable, it happens to us all,

I have run out of tears,

so I beg a friend for a box of rain;

Thursday’s children come, hallucinating solutions;

they chant the never too late ditty,

but the dead will always remain ungrateful.

I am beginning to like dirt, beginning to grow a bad temper.

I ask the nurse what it will cost to settle on one happy Island,

she says the temperature there is fare-in-height;

I think it is time to leave, I think I have enough fare;

let me go and find that warmth which only dwells in the spider’s heart.

Sonnest Nathaniel

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

FAREWELL

It was a night sky of fireflies 

and golden Owls on a train to a city 

made up of space cake that had 

nothing to do with the puff puff pass 

It was a night sky of  burnt love, and emotions 

Of the 11th hour of 2016 with the same 

kiss that sank the titanic 

It was a nightmare of blue 

skies and rainbow dragons,

 Dragged on we were to see the 

sun at midnight, knifed he was

 like a Snow-white kiss.

It was a night of black breeze 

and red snow, slow like her 

lips of sleeping zebras 

and chocolate kisses.

Benjamin.D.N.F

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

AGAIN

It will forever remain so

Why? I ask

Is it such a big task

To have a second thought

Or engage for a second

To challenge your thoughts

You are a minority

Your voice will not be heard

No matter how much you shout

As a matter of fact 

Your petition will be thrown out 

Hello sir

I beg to differ

We have always towed this path

Refusing to live our truth

Because the majority drown your voice

They will not hear

What makes a majority? 

Is it not a collection of minorities? 

How much will it profit you to forever hold your piece

Ilupeju Adebayo

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

FARE WELL

The miseries of unrequited love made her question her very existence,

She stood unsteadily on life's river bank,

Should she jump in?

Should she not?

She looked up at the sky,

Flying seemed a bit easier- she thought.

She eased up, felt her soul struggle through her body,

Rummaging through blood and veins- 

Finally she broke through, soaring  with outstretched arms into the air...

Far away, the intercourse between tires and pavement reach climax, 

disrupting her slumbering thoughts,

The moans of vehicles calling her back to reality,

The cries of an underfed child was beckoning..

She sighed...

Flying has to win!

As she resolved to defy gravity, 

she plummeted to the jagged rocks below,

Apparently gravity could not be appeased,

It plucked the web of her sadly constructed life.

Curtains closed...

Priscilla 'zara' Ahaiwe

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THIS SILENCE IS NOT TRANQUILITY

This silence is not tranquility

It is the silence of a lamb

This lamb has been led to the cross

And her piercing screams have been ignored

Again

This silence is no balm for her soul

She hears nothing

Yet she sees everything

They hear everything

And say nothing

This silence is evil

The evil that crawls at night

Into broken windows and wretched doors

Like the serpent

This evil slithers and finds home in her vacuous heart

This silence is ghoulish

She sees them mock her

Judge her

Ignore her

Bile rises to the surface

As vile hands reach for her

Again

This silence is a coward

This silence that stifles her voice

That rips the blindfold off justice

And stares at her with cold eyes

Again

This silence is welcome

It is easy

The Footsteps outside her door

Bring no salvation

No redemption

How do they sleep at night?

While her pain hangs heavily over their roofs

How do they fare in the glare of day light?

How do they bear the guilt of their silence?

Kemibon

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

THESE LANDS

Go ahead and bring your dreams and we will break it

Tell us the nature of your vice and we will upgrade it

Bring us your worst and we will take it

In our future our history is always waiting.

Yes we drown in our tears and blood

Hopelessness reigns supreme

Because we do not trust hope, it has forsaken this land

Nothing lies inside except lies and deceit.

There is no music in our soul

Our spirits dance the dance of sadness

Without rhythm or music

But the erratic pounding of broken dreams like the Ekpe dance.

There is no warmth left in our sun

It seems there will be no dawn for us

But the slow decay of time

We do not even dig real graves now

We dig shallow graves now

So in death there is only debt.

Yet life demands an unfair fare

Even though it is not fair

Let us crawl into destiny’s lair

And embrace our fate.

chisom

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

JOURNEY OF LIFE

Existence is a journey of life

Fasten your seat belt

Be assured the road maybe long or short

Bright or cloudy it is a fare

It is fashioned by our thoughts, words and actions

Turn as you may

It still remains a journey

The barrier is the distance

The closer it gets the farther it seems

It’s a race without end in sight

But end it must come to

The bus is filled with people

Journeying through same road

Heading to different destinations

At bus stops People disembark, people embark

At different times and hour

Each busy with his thoughts

Unseen by others but recorded in creation

Nothing is lost, the thinnest is recorded

Fair or unfair matters not

How long is the journey, no one knows.

What matters is what is gathered

Each person on the journey will disembark

At the appointed time

That is the journey of life

Make use of each minute

Be grateful for each day

It is fare

Chika Nnamani