Larry Onokpite (in the middle) Winner Poem of the Month |
DEAR
ESEROPHE – POEM
OF THE MONTH
Dear Eserophe,
At sunset yesterday, we received in the mailbox your letter
dated eight months ago
There is no cell network here yet and our TV cable man kicked
the “buckets”
And although a lot of crude oil is sucked from here, we are
pretty much in stone age.
Last year, the youths got fed up with the low life here,
They hauled large logs at the junction to the oil drilling
company site
While some of them protested there, others marched to the
Chief's house
Hehe! The chief escaped the angry mob with some sort of
pre-knowledge
Some say it is voodoo! But we all know there is always a
Judas
The youths smashed some of the house glass windows – injuring a
child whose cot was near the window.
Well, that child is the Chief's grandchild from his 16 year old
daughter
The youths spontaneously decided to burn down the house.
They sprayed fuel around it and had gone to fetch a match box,
when the police intercepted them with teargases
The police also tried to scare the group at the company’s
junction too. But, just before they could open the tear gases, one of the
youths ran towards them
I remembered his name until just now
But, he is the only one whose wife wears trousers
Anyway, when he neared the cops, he drew out his shiny sharp
cutlass
And cut himself 3 times!
Neat! There was not a single wound! The police disappeared!
The protest promised not to stop until a better life began here
The young women joined by cooking meals for the protesting men
On the ninth sunset of the protest
The youth leaders went into a conclave with the company heads
and the chief
Professionally, the junction was cleared and cleaned!
Sucking of oil resumed immediately
A vague meeting was held inside the town hall the following
sunset
The youth leader with a heavy head nod from the Chief declared:
“Things are in the pipeline!”
It is six months now!
I am sure the pipeline’s head is not correct.
For only delivering the youth leader’s Mercedes Benz.
Larry
Onokpite
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
HIDE
1.
How to take a joke :
You shrink back into your skin .
You stretch the lines of your lips
To the corners of your cheek till it starts to hurt.
You shoot the bullet of pain behind your skull,
You wipe the blood with the tissues of your brain.
You hide the scars behind the texture of your skin.
You swallow the joke ,
Even as it’s sharp edges pierces the insides of your chest.
You ignore the damage it is causing your lungs ,
You embrace the pain
As you let out a laugh like a strangled hyena .
2.
How to handle body shaming :
You melt back into your body .
You hide in the space between skin and bones.
You pretend as if the words aren’t like swords.
You pretend as if the words aren’t monsters
Forever stuck in your mirrors .
You pretend as if your skinny frame does
Not have enough flesh to feel the dagger
Of tongues pierce your skin.
As the words remain like hard balls
Bouncing off the walls of your mind
Each causing more damage to the already
Crumbling frame.
You try your best to drag your sanity away
From the wreckage.
You hug your body tightly,
Reminding her that you are trying to love her,
You are trying to save her from this torment of words
While pushing away the feeling of resentment you
Feel towards her.
3.
How to avoid bullies:
You don’t .
They are all made of jokes
And everyone else is funny.
Hauwa
S. Abubakar
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
FALLING STAR
When
you see the star falling,
It is time to make a wish,
Stars are God's gift to beauty,
To shine in my darkened night,
And helping me see a little light
My sparkling star still hung,
My life has cause to shine,
I am the son of the cosmos,
The ruler of the skies,
I was born when nebula collapse.
I have made my path known,
A path I have chosen to follow,
I crumble, and collapse,
But this is not my destruction,
This is my birth.
Here wait I,
On the world's rim,
Stretching out hands,
To get hold of my star,
And make a wish.
Let me make my wish,
All I need is little encouragement,
To fulfill what's inside of me,
Finding what is deep in my heart,
And my falling star to twinkle my path.
It is time to make a wish,
Stars are God's gift to beauty,
To shine in my darkened night,
And helping me see a little light
My sparkling star still hung,
My life has cause to shine,
I am the son of the cosmos,
The ruler of the skies,
I was born when nebula collapse.
I have made my path known,
A path I have chosen to follow,
I crumble, and collapse,
But this is not my destruction,
This is my birth.
Here wait I,
On the world's rim,
Stretching out hands,
To get hold of my star,
And make a wish.
Let me make my wish,
All I need is little encouragement,
To fulfill what's inside of me,
Finding what is deep in my heart,
And my falling star to twinkle my path.
Adeeso Adeyemi
//////////////////////////////////////////
CARPE
DIEM
Set this stage on stone, Let the numberless grains
Of sand witness for generations
The stamped soles of Angels and Men
Of their sagaciousness and low seasons
Of the Solemn songs in the mist
Unknown to the spiritless one
Who meddles in this perfect act;
Of times written in gold
If I may plead for our time again
Surely paths will cross in the loveliest
Of ways, indeed it shall!
And I will see you as you see me.
But still your trail will be hidden
And this fool will dance as once before
Because our eyes cannot see the ugliness
We carry in trays of sweet novenas
Now you leave me stacked with
Memories that hunts me deeply
Tears that drowns me wholly
Sleep that brushes my night so frailly
For I have lived through the eyes of an Angel
Let me breath this moment forever
Let this trench drink on even further
For even this solemn sky shall quiver
Of this beautiful grace that pierced even God
Given in this moment of love and loss
Alas! If the prophet cry loudly
To reveal this future of me before you
This noble fool will dance deaf
And I will again see you as you see me
For our days is More than a million years
Amar Basil
//////////////////////////////////////////
HID
Two lovers seated on the balcony with melodies
of the birds adding flavors to their conversation
The sounds of happiness were filled with the
laughter of the lovebirds and the humans, you could barely
Differentiated.
The church bell bellowed with sounds of joy, as
the couple walks in, hands entwined in ecstasy of hope
The parents danced and well-wishers harder, the
euphoria of the moment could be cut with a knife
It was love!
The post on social media read; my joy and my
keeper, the pictures were dipped with love sauce
The I-like-you-so-much was replied with oh, I am
sorry, I have a girlfriend I really love. Scoffs!
Would anyone choose you, make you theirs,
protect you, fight for you and finally hid you in the safety of
their love. You asked, pondered, slept, dreamt
and woke up to reality of loving yourself more till you
await no more.
It was love!
Beejay!
/////////////////////////////////////////
JUMP
This is me
Wanting you
Wanting to jump into your arms
Like a cat
I want to move in delightful circles
Until I find a comfortable spot
Where I’ll stay in peaceful contentment
This is me
Wishing for you to be old
Wishing that I was younger so it would make sense
This is me
Falling for you
Falling like fools do
Falling like a dislodged chicken feather
This is me
Counting
Counting the days
Till I see you again
So we can sit in the far left corner of my beige couch
And talk
Talking is easy with you
So I count the days
This is me
Gazing
Not at stars
But at your perfectly shaped
Red lips
Especially
When you hide a smile
After that sweet sounding laughter
that pull up memories of one I used to dance with
dancing under the stars to the music of the night
This is me
Wondering
Wondering how incredibly beautiful it is (would be)
To love you
Kemibon
///////////////////////////////////////////
HIDDEN
STORIES (NAKED STORIES)
Tell me a story that is hidden within this
reality
I see the story in your sparkling eyes
I can feel the depth from the texture of your
tone
Your gestures
The modulation of your voice
Reaches a crescendo and fizzles out
Tell me a story of love
Of triumph
A sad story that brings back good memories
Tell me that story that is hidden within the
story
Tell me that story were so many truths were told
to cover a lie
Tell that story were a man dies several times to
feel alive
Just tell me!
Tell me!
Those unreal stories you will only find in
reality
Let them have the colour of water
Let it remind us of where we are coming from
Always tell it the way it is
Stripped of all covering
Naked
Ifeanyi
Okwosha
///////////////////////////////////////
HIDDEN
ECSTASY
The fantasy of ecstasy
Is the fountain of deep void
Covered with blindfold
Unforeseen by its depth
With clutched fist
With strength to strike
Punches thrown landing heavy blows
Mischievously smiling at its victim
Ecstasy hidden in disguise of want
Covering its victim with blindfold
Blowing hot and cold
Bringing happiness short lived
Leaving in its trail doubts
Counter the punches of ecstasy
With the punches of reality
Hidden underneath is fear
Fear to let go
Fear of exposure
Fear to live
Under the blindfold lies the strength to uncover
The hidden treasure buried underneath
Begging for freedom to live
Lack of self will causing more pain, more joy
and happiness
Toying with emotions ready to explode for want
of action
Gathering storm along the way
Dancing to the song of the depraved
With smiles out of this world
Let go of ecstasy and live again
Chika
Nnamani
////////////////////////////////
HID
Pains do not always hover in plain sight,
They are shrouded in morning rituals of cucumber and carrots scented-baths,
Obscured by flowery smiles and perfect teeth,
Concealed beneath dark-tinted glasses,
Disguised in Chanel suits and Gucci bags,
Masked in huge brown eyes, perfect hairdo and exquisite makeovers,
Covered in rose-coloured skins and manicured fingers.
Camouflaged in silence, show of strength and straight-faced demeanour,
Unseen in hangouts and a thousand friends,
Veiled by many 'I'm very fine, thank yous'.
If you could read expressions and eye stories,
They are shrouded in morning rituals of cucumber and carrots scented-baths,
Obscured by flowery smiles and perfect teeth,
Concealed beneath dark-tinted glasses,
Disguised in Chanel suits and Gucci bags,
Masked in huge brown eyes, perfect hairdo and exquisite makeovers,
Covered in rose-coloured skins and manicured fingers.
Camouflaged in silence, show of strength and straight-faced demeanour,
Unseen in hangouts and a thousand friends,
Veiled by many 'I'm very fine, thank yous'.
If you could read expressions and eye stories,
You'd see the tear-stained pillows before the morning
rituals,
The glassiness underneath the flowery smiles,
Bulgy eyes under tinted eyes glasses,
Weary shoulders hunched inside that suit,
Shaky manicured fingers,
The panic attacks hidden by silence.
You'd see that beneath the 'I'm very fine',
Someone is already cracking,
Maybe beyond salvation.
Weary shoulders hunched inside that suit,
Shaky manicured fingers,
The panic attacks hidden by silence.
You'd see that beneath the 'I'm very fine',
Someone is already cracking,
Maybe beyond salvation.
Priscilla
/////////////////////////
WHO HID MY MOTHER?
My mother gloriously tumbling in honest thunder,
She whirls an Israel heart to every daughter,
In two shakes of a lamb’s tail
Does each scarlet child of Rehoboam chase a tail.
All tribes refuse the mortise in silk disaster,
Let me resonate Absalom daughters that unity is a master.
A ‘night voice’ is everywhere,
Kick your legs to orchestrate success.
The fathers of leathery protocols lost their essence
Of old boots donkey years ago.
If mother’s birth denied our fingers equality,
Nookles are the humble desperation of silk equality.
Collapsing tears drown my pen days
As I dig why lion independence bacame glory days.
Dragons of documents dangerously drag desires on red road.
Thunder is a cramped road.(Matthew 7:13, 14)
A ‘night voice’ is everywhere,
Kick your legs to orchestrate success.
The fathers of leathery protocols lost their essence
Of old boots donkey years ago.
Come on plain thunder !
Let me be plain as power,
Bureaucracy hid my mother.
-Ajakaye Rashidat
Olamidayo.
//////////////////////////////////////////
HIDES OF JUVENILE
THOUGHTS ‘
The predecessors of feet humility
Observantly mourn the cophinus circa gloop piano
Over old loyal drums.
Without more ado,
We watered breath on the wee small hours,
Diddling and brief nightmares saw whittled Cannan of civilization
Yet we were taught to tough.
The world is your oyster
But using the straw of Job’s patience
Maintains the spring of wine longest.
Some Eli bones blame the screen
That hit its operator on Lagos’ road.
Civilization or thought of their world?
Young thoughts hid screams of the hills.
Alhaja Ajakaye Simiatu Olanrewaju.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
HID
Hide these truths they hurt a lot
Spare my light the horrors of your darkness
You hid your truths in the chasm that is your
soul
Took me a while to find them
Blood of my soul save me from these truths
Tell me these truths are lies
Let them be hid further don’t open the lid
Let your lies lead your truths astray
Let them not find me, let them not heed my calls
Let these truth drown in the miry pits of your
soul
Let them from me be hid forever.
Chisom
////////////////////////////////////////////
MAPLEWOOD
Here, the lips fail
to relay all that the
eyes have witnessed,
so we store
some memories beneath the bones,
and our bodies begin to learn how to pray
to a new god that leaves us fat and trapped in debts.
I am a man
learning his partner’s true
identity,
learning my
love
is a two-edged Gillette blade
cutting passion both ways.
Learning how sometimes
the moans on her lips at midnight
are prayers in
devotion to an absent lover.
Learning that forever is the day after the
altar,
and the tears as she read her creed that
day,
was in fear of a late dawning reality
that this union might be a life jail term.
that this union might be a life jail term.
I am a man
about to jump off the cliff of his ego,
I have just learnt of
a generation aborted,
offered at the altar of exuberance;
dreams crushed beneath the poundings
of a pestle carved from pride. Dreams squashed into paste
of a pestle carved from pride. Dreams squashed into paste
in mortars of melancholia.
I have just learnt of paste
made from mashed flesh &
blood
mixed
with lanolin-based creams
just to keep clay from decay;
the fantasy of remaining ageless.
I am the man
pacing about his apartment,
remembering how
empty the rooms were
when I and my young lover rushed in,
body surging with Adrenalin and passion.
I am remembering
how all we had
then
was a mat for prayers and love making;
the walls replay to me every argument we had,
and I bow my head in shame.
I notice how big the cobwebs in my bedroom
have become,
I am wondering what the spiders stole from
us
I think they built their homes from the
threads
that made up the fabric of our affection.
Seinabo Sey croons her ‘Hard Time’,
and I realize I have woken up too late,
an eternity has eluded me;
but this is not the saddest part;
what grieves me most
is not her rapture.
I am more distraught that she thinks
I am deeper in love with perfection
I am broken that she believes
all I longed is to pass judgment.
If only she knew
that my existence did and still depends
on the unusual magic
of her imperfections.
Soonest
Nathaniel
/////////////////////////////////////////////
FROM
THE WINDOWS
From the windows of a rehabilitating cell
I see my shadows, my being in hell
Walking like a solitary ghost in the dawn
I feel like a shell from which the nut’s gone.
Hard liquor has holidayed in my liver
Leaving me with cerebral fever
And shaking me to high shiver
This, does make me quiver.
And when the needle had engaged my vein
I saw how my life has been in vain
How I had sought peace in green bottle
But bottled the peace in the bottle.
From fitly smoke wraps
Down to daughter Eve’s laps
Caught me like traps
Over the life of curious rats.
In the alcoves of my lowly soul
I did resolve to deep sole
Never to live like a mole
Whose lives remain in empty hole.
But, my nurse tells me:
In the meeting of pressure and pleasure
You must have a strong will as a measure
If you must protect a pride that you treasure
You must retire your hormones from leisure.
The hormones are too wild to learn
Even to be gentle while the senses yearn
Bu this, a lord must squash
And too, slash and smash.
From this window of mine
I heard my nurse’s voice that’s benign
Dropping like dew on my parched tongue
And watering the estuaries of my hidden mind.
Ikechukwu
Ogbu
//////////////////////////////////
STANDING
IN MY OWN SQUARE
So I am here
And I am fully aware
Yet my awareness is sitting cross-legged on a
rocking chair
It's not like I don't care
But my care is resting on the armchair
Staring at the nightmare
That is now realities present share
So I don't partake in that affair
That doesn't mean I am hiding here
Isn't my square in full glare?
Besides I listen to folktales
Old wives tales
And societal wails
There's no joy to gain
As more than enough pain
Makes the rounds everywhere
This nightmare is quite clear
I just refuse to disturb my opinions nap
Or borrow an orators speaking cap
I may or may not have time to spare
But there's no hiding involved here
I'm just a horn not ready to blare.
Erhio
//////////////////////////////////
HID:
You are a city set on a hill
You are the salt of the Earth
You are the light of the world
You are a candle on top of the
table
You are the house of the Lord
which is on top of the mountain
What you pray in secret will be
answered in the open
What you do in the dark will be
exposed in the light; exposed by
the light.
Your sins will find you out
You are a head and shoulders man
You cannot be hid
You are a very public sinner
You bring out the God flavour
and taste of
the world
You bring out the kaleidoscopic dimensions of
the divinity.
You stick out like the cliched sore thumb
You are a peripatetic, peripoesis; a movable and
yet peculiar person
You are the spot of palm oil in the center of
the piece of white cloth.
It's important to note that you are a spot,
a pinprick and not a smudge
You don't have to play the notice me or I die
game of the low self esteemed slay queen;
the "olosho" who kills nothing but
her self respect
You are a point of reference; a point
of contact for all that is virtuous and valuable
You have not lost your saltness and so will not
be used as water and mud absorbent, though you have lost your saltiness of
speech in the interest of the seasoning of grace
You are not crouched under a table
or scrunched into a cupboard- your light, that
is.
But you shine
You do good
People see it, see you
and give the glory where it is due
You carry on with business as usual because you
have no ego induced concern as to who gets credit for what.
You have not edged God out!
You are as in-spirited as ever
You are as in-Goded as ever
You are working extra hard at transcending your
own formation
You feel the fear and do it all
You are a feeler who thinks
A thinker who feels
You are a talker who listens
A listener who talks
You enjoy silence and stillness
You enjoy community and fellowship
You are a bundle
of contrasts without conflict,
confusion and contradiction
You cannot be hid!
Andrew
Whyte