POEMS READ AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 10 EPSIODE 10 CHARGE

SEGUN PETERS WINNER POEM OF THE MONTH

Mama's Song – Poem of the month

Silence breaks

the drums that 

sets the times,

and change 

has become like

 rasp heartbeats 

of a dying forest.

Fiery whispers 

ignites the wild

 mirages of once-was,

 and hope sighs 

like the bellows 

of a grieving hunt.

Sad songs 

smears the sprite 

on Mama's children,

and their playground 

has become an assembly 

of irate crows.

The lure of ruttish

bloom has left 

the maiden's bosom, 

and her adorers suckles 

dew at sunset's chill.

The warrior's 

bloodlust is tamed 

by eerie music from

 across the seas, 

and his courtesans

 shames their place by 

his divan.

Sing us a song

 Mama. Sing of the 

storms that rode to 

your shores and 

pillaged your cellars. 

Sing of tears shed for 

the adaged gourd

spilled to the dirt.

Sing for us 

Mama, for your

silence deafens. 

And in your vacuous

shanty there reverberates

shadows from your

horrors.

Your children

have forgotten the 

songs that leads 

home, even

by the market 

squares; the ones 

Mama once told 

tales of his root.

Your maidens

have swallowed her

 pride before the 

morning rise, even

by the sunsets; the evenings 

Mama once extoled

her beauty.

Your warriors' spear

 faints in the heart

 of the jungle, even

by the gods; the valor

Mama once invoked by 

the names of 

his ancestors.

Her sad songs amuses 

the morning crickets

as its wisdom fills 

an empty home. Her 

children dance to her

shame, begging for 

meals to eat. And 

her maidens? They 

curse their skins,

seeking crowns

that will fit.

Her elders spit

on her stool to sit at 

the foot of masters.

Her ancestors are fabled,

her gods are sanguinary,

but her lands;

they are benevolence

of a jealous  deity.

Her sacred womb loaths 

as the coven of spiders.

Her kinky hair soaks

with tears that mops

the feet of her oppressors.

Her legends are

amusement for alien nestlings.

Her peace was rent 

by the angst of 

smokes and powder.

Her neighbour was

redeemed by chains and 

a baptism of the vast seas.

Mama has sang her song

And no one heard it.

So she buries her treasures

beneath the Sahara and by 

the nile, she wept.

I searched her place 

and she was no more.

I sought her face 

and it was no one.

I called her name

and she was anon.

Is there anymore 

song from Mama? 

Because we sailed

from shore but 

we head not 

where we hoped.

Is there a tale 

of Mama's pride?

Because we cultivated

exotic lands and 

we will never

be seeds of where 

we sowed.

For neither 

clothes we wore,  

nor manners we spoke

could hide the black within.

And the shame we 

covered up is the only 

root to the tree 

we will ever be.

Mama has sang her song

And no one heard it.

But in the lingering

notes of her demise

we hear her charge.

For the lips eager will split

And ears ticking will fulfil

And the eyes peering will belief.

That as Sun sets,

as hope revives,

as the crows call 

and dawn and the gong 

strikes like one;

as generations come,

and seasons revives,

as I am made in black

as the soul testifies,

as Mama cries 

the truth derives

that in her songs,

we were,

and in her pride

we are,

and in her heart

we will be,

a voice

a people

a Heritage.

Segun Peters

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

THE PROPHET
Look up
The sky is a home too close
If you seek freedom from chaos.
Grapple with the chicken-little inside you
But let your freewill spread eagle-high

Brave up
Look beyond and still your quivering.
The storms may rage
And the night may prey
But an unbent soul tempers fate.

Live up
Today well spent is tomorrow's grace
And today's grace will be tomorrow already spent.
You should obey the night's call with its cushion of slumber
And charge the day's hardknocks with the labors of passion.

Love up
The charm spelt to you in a woman's eyes is rapturous
The steady hand of your brother when in distress is rhapsodic
The last wine with a friend before rains is heartening.
Love is a breathtaking adventure of seeking others in you.

Sober up
You owe your measures of troubles as with every desires
Sadness is only a mirror for as long as you can dig within
Pain drives towards foresight except you journey blind in pleasures
Whatever comes to you is an asking, so answer when it calls.

Emmanuel Junior

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

CHARGE THE REFLECTION OF HILLS '

Here my pillow pecks me,

Thousands of tears dragging my feet

Till rusting becomes needless in my golden bones.

Let me be plain as brief militants,

I owe the city of lust

and Ahab's materialism, my poetically sacred tongue,

young tomorrow, reliable charlorts,

content is blue happiness,

but more of honag peace.

Gladden your gold ancestors

before dust catches our cartilage bones,

let hill Jesus be the forgiving platforms,

warrant the twelve men the change,

may our rosy bones escape thorns 

of dale ignorance.

We plead you charge coffins of hills.

Alhaja Ajakaye Adunni Olawarewaju Simiatu.

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

‘FAILURE IS BEAUTIFUL’

Fruitless grasses as Ichabod green and verdant,

Uncountable throne lamina, leaves hail the wind

for hallelujah of fine fettled fruits.

Failure is a part of successful fruits,

over hill, or middle hollows,

you will see no valley success,

Samuel Beckett authors me at scream of dawn's sun,

' Success is to fail better. '

Let me tell you a promise,

I don't know... Failure prays a golden mirrour 

of humility, determination, persistence

till success fou.

Believe reality of Jairus' daughter,

failure is a principled history 

and its reflection is success.

Lest it skips the soul of my emotional outlet,

apologies to the humble wisdom

of my duckling voice,

oh you grass Nigeria !

I pray nationalism and golden wisdom

merrily catches your tomorrow.

Fall not at the wayside,

for failure formulates long fettled long teeth.

Let limestone on your Jericho bones

for Ella Dein's broken mirror 

steals no images,

we shall paradisically paint your bloody immortalized

shame green.

Wisdom rejoices failure a charge.

Ajakaye Rashidat Olamidayo.

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

CHARGE:

This is not the charge of the light brigade- a poetic and somewhat jingoistic rendition of a signature British military failure.

Nor an exhortation to charge your phone battery or your electric meter, if you have been graced to receive one at the grossly overpriced valuation.

Battery charger

Car chargers

Phone chargers

Lap top chargers-

whole lives surrounded by chargers and charging instruments.

Maybe it's referencing the charge from a motivational talk or the sugar-rushing-heart debilitating charge from a can of red bull or even the deadly charges from the running bulls of Pamplona!

Charge as rushing somewhere or to something

Charged with a burst

of energy

Charging your glasses

to propose a toast

Charging a proper fee

for professional services rendered or to be rendered competently or professionally and with commensurate pride.

A Charge' in charge of affairs at a pretensiously denominated commission.

Giving a charge, encouraging matrimonial harmony and Conjugal felicuty- a charge to which attention is not paid as the recipients are usually engaged in their thoughts with matters amorous and anatomical.

I, for one am making charges and taking charge, whilst charging ahead on a white charger of white hot conviction, in every one of the ways possibly applicable and in combination!

Andrew Whyte

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

The Way we were 

The way we were before we left us unplugged 

Draining like a battery without a charger 

We left us thinking it was the right thing to do 

For all the wrong reasons

We knew what it was the very first day we met

Our eyes like a switch lit up that very muscle in the chest 

That pumps the sustaining liquid 

Through those high ways 

Supplying all the goods needed

It was a sign 

Something beyond space and time  

Yes it was real 

A riddle 

Words cannot capture its essence

We did not know we will be like a dying planet without its sun

When we left us

Yes the battery was fully charged 

We had our reasons and excuses 

We justified it

For what we had sustained us

The symbiotic sustenance gone     

We became a power bank to others 

Draining one bar after another 

Like the cursor on this page

Blinking

Dying

The way we were

Was so special  

Even death whispered into my ear

It is beyond me

Ifeanyi Okwosha

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

IT'S A CYCLE 

It's not only phones that need to be charged and recharged.

Yes, that is stating the obvious, 

Because sometimes, it's not that we need to learn new things,

but that we need to be reminded of things we have previously learned. 

It's a cycle, you see. 

Charge, discharge, recharge, discharge, recharge...

It rolls from self awareness: my battery is low 

To self love: I will recharge myself 

It's in grand gestures: 

A full day at the spa

A rooftop dinner with some of your favorite people

Turn off your phones and sleep

It's in small, easy-to-dismiss gestures:

Hearing a child's pure, precious laugh and feeling your heart lighten a little.

Warm, unhurried hugs that say, 'It's great to connect with you'.

Writing your pain and fear, your shame and anxiety on beach sand and watching the water come rushing to carry it away.

There

Clean slate 

You can start all over again

Start with a mighty, deep breath

Refuel your generator

Refuel your mind

Charge your phone 

Charge your soul

Joy Nwamaka

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

CHARGE

Charge! I shouted

But not from my heart

My heart speaks softly now

Because they say that the sky won’t fall

Yet anytime I speak my truth

I see the sky on the floor

I know there are things I don’t know

Things hidden in plain sight

Things that feels like roses

They even smell like roses

But I tell the truth they are not roses

There are lies covered with truths

And layers upon layers of worlds

I may never experience

I know there are realities too deep for me to know

Like I said it would be like you felt a rose

Like you smelled a rose

But then it is not a rose

Roses are red never “blue”

But why do they die so easily

That my friend I may never know

Because some realities are hidden in plain sights

Some lies are covered with truths

And some truths are covered with a glaze of lies

So you see there are things I don’t know

And may never know

So I say charge softly from my heart.

Chisom

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

I AM NOT NIGERIAN (2)

When the talking drum throws up

Sounds like:

Doh re mi

mi re mi

doh mi mi

re mi

re mi re

Do not pretend to understand

It does not speak your language

It speaks only  

to the one that bears the identity 

the one whose feet shuffle gleefully

with abandon when the drum speaks

that one whose waist wriggles

in rhythm to the highs and lows

of “awo oju ilu”*

as every intense touch

calls you home

Omo onIle Alayan*

It is to you that this call is made

Rise up!

Take charge

Claim your identity

Pick up your drum and listen

Send a message to the one whose skin changes

In the fierceness of the sun

Tell him to release my lover

Tell him chant to my lover:

“Make your feet come back the way they went, make your legs come back the way they went, plant your feet and your legs below and find your way to Akanke..”

Omo Ayan*

Do not fail in your duty

Let your drum thud in rhythm to my name

That my lover may know

“Oluwakemi…Re mi re mi re

Akanke…doh doh mi

Is the one making the call

Let your drum continue to speak

Until my lover is home again!

Kemibon

*Ayan –god of drums/name of tree used for constructing talking drum shells/wood that talks

*Awo Oju Ilu- goat skin/skin on the face of the drum

*Omo Ayan –The initiated drummers belonging to an Ayan lineage/children of Ayan

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