The Poetry Marathon

Love is in the air

The air is breathing love

To this feeling none can compare

If it’s pure then it comes from up above

Yet some may, do well gifting fear

Without a care to others their acts bring out tears

Waterfall of emotions they cause to erupt while burying their emotions deep in their rear

We aren’t built to understand love but to live and give it

Wickedness is not thick enough to kill

Whenever you need a refill, only look within and connect with the spirit

Love exists, and it’s purer than we think, the purity of it comes from deep within.

I know you might be reading this from a different time zone

You’re probably in a place right now you usually would call home

With thoughts maybe hovering over your head seemingly piloted by a drone

Now you’re confused and withdrawn

How is It done?

That in a world with over a billion people how do we get to feeling all alone?

Come rain come shine. Through thick and the thin they promised to be there for you

But it seems, they are left in their numbers with the winds blown.

 

The burden has become too heavy to bear

Deep inside you’re beginning to feel it…they call it fear

A fear of the very future you once expected

But now you can’t tell what it’ll bring, so prophecies you’ve rejected.

Take this letter I’m writing as something of an investment

From a different time zone in your peace of mind I am interested

I’m sending stars out every night just look up and count them

Then List your blessings alongside you’ll see plans perfected.

You should wake up calling yourself bless-ed.

Sinking deep in the shallow waters of misery

Fighting to come up with a boulder sitting comfortably atop me

Makes any form of movement aimless, what then is the point in swimming?

I’m swimming in the deep end with the sharks, it’s like they’ve come fishing.

Tilapia for dinner but I’m missing the right fingers

Burnt to a crisp touching matters meant to be forgotten.

I Stopped spending my days dwelling on what coulda been, shoulda been.

Thinking more on the possibilities coming with tomorrows gleam

I’ve finally accepted that Tomorrow is a love child of yesterday and today

It’s how I now understood that pretty soon tomorrow will become aged and grey.

Welcome to the land where the rains paint the heavens grey
Grey to an orchestra of trees that sway in rythm to the whistling of the east wind, a collaborative birthing of sweet melodies
Melodies so smooth halting time and space, bringing mind and taste to a place where rivers unite as lovers entwined.

Entwined into memories unwound reminding of a man once known, boy maybe
Maybe it was he who once stood at the precipice
Precipice upon which stood the platform that encouraged his Conversations with the stranger
Stranger was he who helped put his wonder asunder

Asunder became like an enchantment discarded. No, he will never forget the day

Day now unfolding to reveal the essence of the visitation.
Visitation now becoming a regular, leaving behind a tear or two which he shed on a daily.
Daily has now become the reminder with reasons for the boy in the man to always see the man in the boy as he peeks through the eyes of time.

Time, the gift he carefully stored away in his treasure chest…blessed.

They say “an African never reads” [so hide knowledge in a book]”…darken the path, put out the light.
Then watch how the turn of events today making this sound so right

Demo-cracy can be or maybe is a Demon gone crazy
Telling us how “all we human BEANS, should ‘STEW’ well together, so why on earth then did they leave out RICE”?
PAYING our leaders to miss-lead
Plus them never getting it right is a difference between black and white
But they’re beginning to look similar, right?

A blessing or a curse?
Whatever…we already made it worse.
Gifted a Trojan horse, and now we’re still looking for the purse.
Dumbfounded with ‘recycled’ speeches promissory of a future filled with riches.
Still, who cares about present hour needs…right?

Don’t be too quick to answer the question nor too slow to question your answer.

Going around in circles will only create a pattern

But it’s still the same bus stops… there’s nothing new!
So while we wait, care to join me in a game of àyó? One understood by just a few.

(more…)

Fairest of them all

Before her to whom many nobles fell

Mountain peaks cleaving to her chest

Supple lips many a thirst are quenched

Adventures becoming pleasures less explained than experienced, still their stories they long to tell

Fairest of them all

Indeed many nobles still will fall.

How deep does the tunnel go?

How bright does the light shine?

How yellow are the gate’s gold?

Very tight is how the chord binds

So, go on…

Tell the tall tale of stories long ago so told?

The true meaning to a poets words…indeed, who can find?

Here today gone tomorrow

There’ll be no more pain, no more sorrow

There’ll be no symphony

Like Lillie’s in the field he’s cooking up a melody.

I put the pen to the paper until it bled

I watched it flow cursive on the paper till it turned red

Taking forms on the surface and subtle meanings beneath

I looked till it became the earth I planted my feet in.

Roots digging deeper, visions becoming clearer

Jab the paper some more i thought, now this will make you bigger.

So I stabbed and jabbed, eyes gleaming with excitement

Lo and behold I built a forest enchanted

Hi Chris.

Been too a long a minute

So I thought I’d write you this.

Even though I still wish we said our goodbyes over a bowl of jollof rice and a keg of palm wine

Then we’d vow a vow to stay together till the end of time.

 

Time.

How come mine stopped ticking, and yours kept running? On this I’d often ponder.

I make to call you sometimes, but then I’d always remember

Parting is still a bitter sweet sorrow

And truly, no one was ever promised tomorrow.

 

Ever felt the tender kiss of a sunflower?

Her scent forever bound to remember

It’s soft petals rubbing against your cheek

Swaying to the lyrics in the wind like old lovers

As it were, alone in a field of dreams.

Every whisper, every touch chronicled in your hardback.

Old wine in old wine skin I would never pass.

A rich elixir swirling in a wine glass

A wealth beyond kingdoms promised with every sip

O permit my being a journey through space

Power beckons at the very tip

This world indeed I sure must take.

What about that old timer?

Once fabled to have traveled the world hopping on one foot

Knitting a web of tales for his journey to suit

Pray tell, what I must expect on my journey around the world.

From his satchel unbound echoed words so profound

“If the world it is you must go around

Then the kiss from a sunflower must surely be found

Never forgetting the tales from towns in the clouds

Then riches from the old wine skin might just lead you to the crown”