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| WINNER POEM OF THE MONTH |
DRAIN
– (Poem of the Month)
Finally I am empty and
you have won!
Or so you think.
You forget that only
when the barrel is empty can it be filled.
Yes! Filled with pure
wine, sweet and straight from the source.
The tears I shed, have
made me see clearer-
I am tired of being a
demure young woman,
Tired of having the
sun above me and the grass beneath my feet, I want a change!
I am tired of empty
I-love-yous marinated in couture bags,
I am tired of living
outside of my dreams.
Tired of giving others
light, enough to blind myself.
I am tired!
''Time waits for no
one''
But I have made
friends with time- he is on my side.
I will no longer be
dragged from dream to dream each night I sleep,
I will wear my age
like a crown, tilt it for light effect and dare anyone to question me,
I will buy the stars
from the sky and make music with the wind,
I will mingle glass
with fire and emerge as a crystal,
My thirties will no
longer find me in a silent state,
It is time to parade
my mind!
Priscilla.
/////////////////////////////
COMPLY or DIE
Let's all confess
Our kitchen is in a
mess
We can't deny
the filth before our
eyes
We are standing amidst
a living nightmare
A congestion of bad
colours and smells
An accumulated mire
Of corroded pots and
pans
Rodents, happy with
their oil well
While we wash and
sanitize our hands
Swears and curses
don't clean
Neither do tears and
sweat
Though those are wet
Our kitchen is a
complete mess
Yet
We look utterly
confused
Our drains clogged
from lack of use
We need to make the
next move
We need to remove
Cut
Unclog
Wash
And flush
Every bad egg thrown
away
What's the use of
keeping contaminated hay
Everything must become
brand new
That includes our
mindset too
If we wish to achieve
spotless and clean
We need to turn a
blind eye
To freshly baked pies
Full of maggots and
Colorful cans full of
worms
Cut, Flush, Wash,
Unclog, Dispose, Strain and Drain
Clean up this mess
Before starvation and
disease
kills us all like
fleas.
Test or no test.
Erhio
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////
WHO FEARS DEATH?
Yesterday, fear was a
mommy.
A figure, wrapped up
in mysticism that we could never decipher
Gently, we dug out her
sacred sarcophagus, a tomb of anger
Unflinching at the
state of her hollow heart, which was found to be untrue,
She never showed us
what love is, so no surprises there.
Her eyes were missing,
but on her face was a mask,
Painted on with
eyeballs we could not recognize,
But we moved on
because her favourite adage had always been “See No Evil”
Her tongue had been
tied behind her larynx
Oh, little wonder she
had no voice!
She had no voice when
we were raped
Because society tied
it up,
We pulled it loose and
she came to life,
Discarding all the
linens of colorful misogyny she was swathed in
Double layers of
Apologism, that made us target practice for devilish deviants
Today, fear is a
skeleton,
Her skeleton, conjured
by society to shackle me,
But I am now SHE, who
Fears not Death,
For my mother has
birthed many sons and daughters of freedom,
Whose voice will
echo for eternity, two letter words to everything immoral?
Noooooooooooooooo!
Lolade
Oye
///////////////////
The Road We Travel
Every breathe that
seems like the last
With all hope almost
extinguished
Crackling and
flickering like the last coal in the ashes
The smoke rises
Bearing hope for it
kindles life
Life that is dependent
on LIFE
We plung in this river
with its high and low tides
Its current some try
to master
Most are like
rudderless captain without compass
The tool we have made
master
It drowns, drains and
bury's its master
It burrows for it is
without wings
With it we dig and
dine in graves
Where heavenly
flourish may abound
These days of darkest
daylight
Will be followed by
brightest night
That give wings to a
morning of glory
This glorious morn may
spell doom for many
Ifeanyi Okwosha
//////////////////////////////////
FRIEND
She
called him friend and clinched her trust in his hands.
As
they walked down the aisle, he fed her promises in streams
That
calmed her tides, with a vow to fulfil all true love demands.
But
the waves brought her nightmares, flowing from the man of her dreams
She
called him friend and planted love in the union
Feeding
it affection as it slowly germinated
She
hoped that what was sown, would blossom into ardent passion
But
she profited bruises for all the love she invested
If
only she knew of the storm ahead
She
would not have let this friendship set sail
For
it would have filled her heart with dread
And
she would have made the course derail
Last
night, she felt thirst for a relief from her tears
So
she cut loose her friendship and let it sail astray
For
the only way to make room for happiness after all these years
Was
to let all of the regrets drain away
Bayo
///////////////////////////////////
DRAINED:
It's my bete
noir
Open drains
Open drains in
2021 leave me feeling drained and apoplectic
Causing me to
start a poem with a rant against our building codes
Codes which
ostensibly have not been updated for multiple generations
And where
updated;
if updated,
remain on the books subject to the whims, caprices and shine of some petty
functionary wielding power with the plumbline and over the plumbing
I saw a
documentary recently about cryogenics
First of all
before you ask what it is, think that the procedure costs from 200,000 dollars and
counting.
Won't bother to
translate that into naira. Though the one percent could certainly handle it,
notwithstanding how they got that handle and joined that group
So, Cryogenics!
Preserving the
body in ice after draining out all the blood and replacing it with something,
nothing or other and keeping it sealed and hermetic; hermetic not hermeneutic
or even monastic, though there is certainly a cloistered outlook to the place.
The bodies are
preserved for tens, twenties maybe
centuries until science catches up with God's program of creation and
resurrection.
Fat chance!
Slim to no hope.
But then
Tutenkhamun fancied himself
Drained of
energy
Draining the
resources of the earth, as if that were possible.
As contrary to
the dismal science, abundance not scarcity is our defining quality, as keepers
of the earth.
Not drained but
replenished; abundant.
An abundant
extravagance and prodigality that comes from the many breasts that spell
abundance.
Started with
drains, open drains and now we have ranged across the earth channeling the
milder centralities, if they exist, of Greenpeace and all its other cohorts.
And yes, it all
starts with drains; no better place to start!
ANDREW WHYTE
/////////////////////////////////
THAT IS HOW YOU FIND THEM
That is how you
find the ones that drain your heart
The ones who
make breaking of the heart an art
The ones that
make your heart flutter like a new born butterfly
The ones that
make you believe in love
Though we all
know that is crafty pheromones playing tricks
The ones that
always push you to where the crisis is
That is how you
find them
A distant smile
across the crowded room
A deep
understanding without words
Like an oasis
for a love-thirsty heart in the desert
That is how you
find
But like most
oasis to a love-thirsty heart they are a mirage
Stupid heart
hoping for the perfect mate in an imperfect heart
That is how they
drain your heart . . . that is how you find them.
CHISOM
