Friday, 19 March 2021

POEMS READ AT OUR LAST POETRY READING LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 12 EPISODE 3 STORM

 


 

How to Live Without Your Body – Poem of the month

 

In the archive of history 

A man wrote his dreams on a scroll, 

sealed it up and posted it to the future. 

Years later this man is erased from the scroll of life, But 

his dreams got hold of his breath and turned it into an elixir and came to life. 

 

On days when I’m alone I see every branch of him stretched into me. 

Though dead, yet every part of him sprout to life again. 

 

We lynch ideas in our minds. 

Our bodies have become graveyards of aborted dreams.

Within our soul is a silent grief

that warbles us to a dirge. 

 

Dail,  I uncouple my mind 

to keep census of ideas that come to play with me. 

I breed them, 

And immortalize them in the heart of life,

That I may reappear again in another’s breath. 

 

This is how man lives without his body

 

Pen Healer

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

 

 

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN DISRUPTION AND STABILITY

 

For the first time in a million years,

there's a knock on my door, our door,

breath so heavy, blow so rigid

I dare not flirt with its' purging presence.

 

Perhaps, you should listen to the walls,

unmask the rain in this noisy silence;

Open up your ears to the uproar ringing across the road

like the conscious cacophony birthed daily within the heart of Oshodi.

the stamping of feet,

unwanted guests,

surging sirens,

buckled boxes,

hymnal farewells...

 

all birthed by a knock on our door

Exactly one month & five days,

today, I'm still trying to figure out

the why behind the knock

where goodbye is a good that

I'm unwilling to buy. Never!

 

Shall I tell you?

It was an outcry who visited our doorpost with old wings,

searched inside, through & all with a dagger

& clipped away a fresh wing out of our presence.

 

With a visit over & done with,

Still, I must ask;

Please, find me a rhythm that will pick me up from this tumultuous tunnel -

where chaos & calmness look the same...

Or tell me, what is the distance between DISRUPTION and STABILITY?

because there is a need to fill in the gap -

a need so sudden & we do not want to go out of control, not now or ever.

 

TOSIN OKUPA

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

I AM BLACK

 

With all the flaks

That your soul can muster

I am what you believe

Guilty as you are bereaved

Truly not giving a quarter,

If that will give you relief

I am not the reprieve for prejudice

I am not lace for shoes, I did not choose

I have just been placed as the stage

Platform for the enraged

I am too big for you to handle

Apple that will not be supple...

Pressed to earth,

Pressed to become a pebble in your heart

You are not suffering from kidney stones

You are just reeling hard 

Unacknowledging your guilty soul

I am black, used to be equal but separate

Free but without the mandate

Feed for fish, when the chains daze

I am black, resplendence is me

He sees you worthy

Leaps when you are walking

He's still left behind,

It's as if you are jogging

He calls you ugly but gets his own color wrong

He admits you are strong

And you would have agreed, but then he reaches for his gun

You are but the sun,

If refused to rise from the east

They won't want to be there

When you do so from the west

I am black

With all the stones aimed at a monster

You have tried to kill me

But here I am, emerging stronger

I am as black as the door that covers your soul

I am black with all the hues that made you cry

I am from the home that I refuse to find

I am as black as the man who first did the kneeling

I am kin to the man, who pleaded to be allowed to continue breathing

I am black

Same flesh, different color

Equal rights, different horrors

I was black before the sailors came and built a door of no return

I was a king in those days

Fire, lapping up a fiery space

I am black, coal lighting up your homes,

Posed as a dent, blended in with a dead conscience

The Klan may have joined the force

I will not be your scattered ash

When the wood succumbs

Having rights should be not a race

And you know I never finish second

Let me be your reason

When hatred becomes a mantle to dismantle

When peace turns to pieces, let's see how you caress the shards

When injustice is paid its wages, let's see how your ears erase our chants 

I am black, I have no other colors for rage

I am your ignored brother, who's always been of age

I am milk for a soul at home with kindness

I have been a king in my home, and I have called you to witness

I have bronze for art, gold for stash

I have sculptures 

Engraved in my culture

I have melodies and rhythms, so sweet it picks holes in hardened souls

I am black 

Stark in my nakedness, when stares approaches gaze

Floating in your thoughts,

When you need to know how much a conscience weighs

I am beauty in harmony with nature

Eyeballs that scintillates

I was Michael before I became Usain

I was Maya before Rihanna became

I am the softness in Jazz

With an extra touch of class

I am the pen pushing history to rewrite

I am Africa,

A future you cannot wait to invite...

 

Akeem Adetayo Oyalowo

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

 

Happy Storm 

 

A happy sun showed its face 

Promising a beautiful day 

The weather warm and soothing like a healing balm

Greeted everyone with open arms 

Plants and flowers reflected a happy cheer

A day that adds an extra glow to happy people

Greetings from the airy ones

Fed the mast to its heart delight 

To set sail in such weather 

A captain’s wish comes true

As he guides and guards his ship

On this beautiful day he beheld the eye 

That consumed him

 

Ifeanyi Okwosha

 

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

 

GREEN AND WHITE BUTTERFLIES

 

We started off as eggs with legs

Putting water in our palmwine kegs

Keeping a clear distance 

From any form of resistance

Taking everything with bent backs

We couldn't risk nasty cracks

 

Soon enough we had seen it all

Frustrated we learnt how to crawl

Our voices declaring our new choices

Yet sadly our unsung heroes fell

Taken down by future citizens of hell

Hiding 

We made our cocoon

Thinking

Did we speak too soon?

 

Like Pupa we now hang

Ignoring severe hunger pangs

Avoiding their irrational fangs

Letting Hope sleep with the belief

That they stand at the edge of the reef

Proudly they continue to sin

Our Pupa like a volcano bubbles within

1, 2, 3, 4...

We eagerly wait to settle scores.

For we are not eggs anymore

 

Like a shark within a whale

Like a Cat with a dragons tail

We will bottle their dark storm

For now we know their forms

To us their raging storms 

Are a gust of nothingness

One big deluded mess

Of emptiness

It's a shame

That history mentions their names

Only when we bottle their storm

When clear skies become the norm

When we wipe clean our slate

Only then can we contemplate

How high we can fly

As Green and White Butterflies

 

Erhio 

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

 

STORM 

Who am I?

I am the one that coutsied 

at the first cockcrow at dawn

Yet you knew not

I am the one that conveyed the wind of fear

To them that maketh you sleepeth not

Yet you knew not

I am the one the abductors fear

The one the legal men in arms save for the last

 

Who am I?

I am the one that plays on the plains of the firmament 

As rain,wind and snow 

Danced to the rhythm 

Of my song in season

I am the one christened 

In shades of feminine appreciation

 

Who am I ?

I am the one fair to all

On a level playing field 

Of troughs and peaks

Balanced in choices and decisions 

Repeated in cycles, generation long

 

Who am I?

I am the storm trooper

I am the storm

I am life

 

Olumide Soyemi 

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

 

MEMORIES OF A STORM

The pain may be dull now

But the memories remain 

You can see him clearly 

The night he untied your nuptials

His cold eyes 

The way he regarded you 

The distance you felt over the telephone

Not comparable to the distance he had prepared for your arrival 

His aloofness only interrupted by his hospitality

The type reserved for guests

You wanted to reach him

Seek his face for something akin to affection

You failed

The storm started slowly

It gathered with every act of rejection

Every avoided eye contact

Even an attempt at making love                                               

 

Was met with absence

Pity crawled in when he said 

Lay your head on my chest if you want

You started to feel tightness in your belly





Alarm 

Fear 

Confusion

The storm brewed

What was this you thought?

This disregard for the vows so proudly uttered before mankind

What was this?

This uneasiness around you

You spent the days of your spousal visit 

In wonder

The wonder at forever’s end

This was it

The end as your lover called it

The storm came in form of tears

Starting in the very depth of your belly

It racked your entire being with its intensity

You strong feminist

Brought to tears by a mere man

You thought

How could you have stooped so low to conquer love

And then be lifted up in the agony of rejection

You wept

 

Kemibon



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

DESTINY HELPER,DESTINY CRASHER

 

Briefly, Destiny means what happens to someone in the future especially things that can't be change or avoid.

A Helper is someone who derives pleasure in helping neither giving nor doing something for a person positively and easily.

A Crasher is someone who derives pleasure in crashing through destroying, denying and misleading.

 

Destiny Helper is someone who's opportuned to help a person achieve his/her goals positively

Destiny Crasher is someone who's opportuned to crash a person by terminating his/her goals negatively

 

In life. Destiny helpers and destiny crashers surrounds the world

Destiny helpers are God sent just like our guardian angels.

Destiny Crashers are sent by the devil to steal, kill and destroy.

 

It all lies in the certain people you reproach or approach.

Some will be nice outwardly but inwardly it the opposite and vice versa.

Some may act hot tempered but they are sweet within expectations.

Some maybe nasty just to get the target but reality they are geniune.

Some may act churchy but they are just hypocrites.

Some comes to direct and mislead.

 

Every humanity is created by God, so certainly we act and look like God.

Its left for you leaving out from his presence.

The journey maybe too hectic or even so far, patience is the key to use drive away discouragement.

Only you can reach the journey you want to even if it delayed.

 

On your way, you will meet distractions and attractions.

On your way, you will meet bitterhearted and sweethearted.

On your way, you will be tempted thrice just Like Satan did to Jesus.

If you keep moving and never stop, you will get there victoriously and courageously.

 

Yea, its super ok that you rest on our way cos humans aint perfect.

Yea its super ok, if your failed from the journey cos success needs a story for history.

Yea it super ok if you learn from your regret through the target and mistakes which is just your miss takes.

Indeed righteousness doesnt come at ones, you got to make it right.

 

Discover yourself and your environment

Your destiny helper and crasher is so close to you

It can be your family, friends, enemies or even someone you never knew or met

Depends on how you handle them when the time reach

 

Contented matters alot if not you take or choose your destiny crashers as helpers cos they advice you about luscious and living big when small or yet to be

Our talent are God's gift to mankind

It left for man to act kind and use it to benefit others

Everywhere and anywhere lies your destiny whether school, club, home, playground, studio, shop, party, church and manymore

Relationship matters alot more than money

 

The more people you meet, help and interact geniunely

The more success stories you get and more better days awaits you

I know this writting will be long tho helpful but its left for you reading, understanding and putting it in as practice

I also know your destiny helper is so close to you waiting for you to hit the line by avoiding your destiny crasher

Its hard times but make it as had

 

As a writer keep doing what you do positively with the soft copies..Days of hard copies and earning money in the morning are near

As a dancer keep doing what you do positively with the short videos..Days of long videos and earning money in morning are near

As a singer, actor/actress, model, spokenword artist and lots more keep up with the entertainment better days are ahead

As a student doctor, engineer, lawyer, mass communicator and lots more keep up with the stress of ASUU and reading/praticing better days are ahead

As a petty trader, hustler, hawker and skillful/business analyst who's trying to make up his/her life and his/her family life good..Better days ahead

 

 CyanahPEN

 

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

 

STILLED HEART

 

 

There was a time when you were the best thing that happened to me

But now we are spent like deflated balloons

 

There was a time when you were the winds that push my fate in the right direction

But now you are the storm that wrecks my ship and push me to a deserted desert island

 

You told me sweet nothings that filled my heart

Now I am only filled with the bitter taste of ever knowing you.

 

Like a leaking boat filled with regrets I scoop the negativities to stay afloat.

 

Cursed is the day that a creature like you was created.

Cursed are the years you will live as a human being

Cursed are the grounds your sinful feet walk on

 

You will be damned to pick pieces of your heart broken by others

You will never finish picking them till you die a wretched death

 

You see I am better than you

I have already picked almost at the pieces you broke my heart into

 

I will just spend a little more time to piece them together

And I will be whole again.

Then this raging storm in my heart will be stilled

 

CHISOM


No comments:

Post a Comment