Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,199,005 members, 7,970,066 topics. Date: Tuesday, 08 October 2024 at 07:58 PM |
Nairaland Forum / Entertainment / Literature / Poems For Review / Three Excellent Poems (930 Views)
A Short Collection Of Christian Poems / Poems That Tell A Story... / Original Love Poems (2) (3) (4)
(1) (Reply)
Three Excellent Poems by agbolele: 7:32am On Sep 05, 2012 |
SULEIMAN A. BUHARI THREE POEMS agbonkhianmen@yahoo.com WORSHIPPING WELLS …….. because it is more important to need than believe in god May I need the god I don’t believe in When I pray may god be too busy to listen That in confirming his inexistence I may learn to believe in myself And become as disappointed in myself as I am in god Thus question my existence : and in my digging let me find nothing Because it is better for a man to remain a mystery even unto himself Cursed is the well that knows its depth For its has become a proud throat Thirsty and insecure; and in my quest to disprove, by finding nothing May I prove my existence, and god’s That I may return to draw of his disappointment because …… HUNGRY AND WET Our elders say when a man goes to the farm Food and rest should await his return I went to the farm but I returned to hunger So I slept, hungry, with tiredness And as I slept, I dreamt of a life lived in dreams I dreamt of me and I dreamt of you I dreamt of us and I dreamt of food So I ate and became heavy with satisfaction Filled with tiredness I slept And woke up on my farm It was just a dream Surely food and rest await me I worked the soil and as the sun set My shadow stretched towards home As I returned I saw smoke billowing from my compound Our elders say when a man returning home Sees smoke billowing from his compound He should be happy because someone remembered to cook for him But he should also entertain the possibility that his house is on fire I ran home and saw fire alone No cook, no food, no roof or house fire Just fire burning on his own I got water to put it out For our elders say Water beats fire any day But water only fed it and it blazed Flirting with the yams in my barn and the roof of my house I poured more water Yet it burned bigger, brighter, hungrier Cooking the yams in my barn and the roof of my house Desperate, I urinated on it For the elders say urine wards off evil spirits It went out The evil fire My cook for the day The yams were sweet though out of season They filled me with satisfaction I went to sleep And as I slept, I dreamt of a life lived in dreams I dreamt of me and I dreamt of you I dreamt of us yet I was hungry Hunger loomed large over me Blazing the roof; (which, unbeknownst to me, remained on fire through my meal) The evil fire My cook for the day Loomed large over me Devouring its thatched meal Threatening to leave me here with you Hunger fell on me And I died I resurrected Hungry and wet AGBONKHIANMEN / WHY I WRITE ‘Some say they write because they have to, Other says ‘Writing is my life’ Other say stranger things, but I I write because ………. Most babies are born crying Others born smiling, My parents tell me l was born coughing Imagine it, born with a cough so violent, I almost died at birth Coughing with a cold and something stuck down my throat The evil midwives rescued me But they killed him. Most babies are born once I was born twice My twin didn’t survive the evil midwives So my grandmother tells me I lead two lives One mine, The other for the spirit who tried to come with me I agree, I am split, I disagree, He came back, my twin, a recurrent child He came back, four years to the day Almost, four days to the day My brother, my twin. The clot was out, but my cough didn’t stop I coughed my way into my grandfather’s arms He named me Agbonkhianmen After Myself A strange name More a title than a name The title the man he called father carried through life. Some say he was his father, Others say he was the man who took care of him When his father started talking with spirits Before his father jumped off the cliff When the bible convinced him That if he landed he would be god And if he didn’t he would ascend on a fiery chariot At least they named the hill and cliff after him Madman hill, the Divine drop. He named me after him, a man of understanding, Because before he died he coughed a lot Something was stuck down his throat A medicine man himself, his friends checked but it was clear The Doctors probed, there was nothing there Yet he coughed in the face of Death And now I return like I left. But the dreams never left me, Dreams of Gods and Goddesses Godkings and Godmen Holy wars and madness. Dreams of past lives lived The songs, the signs, the symbols. They haunted me in my youth, I expressed them in comic books I drew a lot; My longest running serial “The Power Hogs” Based on the Ninja Turtles, but based in Lagos, I got flogged in school for drawing in my note books I drew a lot I stopped drawing in secondary school I noticed beauty And women, even as girls, complicate everything She said “Drawing is childish” So I left Drawing alone She left me even before I left drawing She never was with me I was so stupid Now she’s barely a memory I can’t even remember her name Even though I remember names readily. Thus, I lost drawing to Beauty I was so stupid I left drawing for nobody. I went to university, My dreams came with me They didn’t stop because I stopped Drawing Unexpressed, they got worse NIGHTMARES !!!!!!!! After my degreeless stint, They haunted me even more The rise of light and birth of darkness, Truth and Untruth in Moonlake The fall of the gods And the rise of kings Death in the flood And life in new beginnings. Then I saw him before he saw me I approached him before he called me An old withered man with markings around his navel A symbol I had seen many times before But had no clue what it was He knew me He knew me well Too well It was scary (I must be schizophrenic) He spoke Ido (Divine Esan) The Mother of all Tongues, My Mother tongue which I really don’t understand But in a funny way I understood him, Like I used to understand my grandmother, Who is with Olokun, Who told me stories in Ido Many stories, Three stick out The first was about a boy The second, a fish The third, a water spirit She told me these stories three years apart I was an adult when I realized The three are one The boy is a fish And the fish, a water spirit We spoke until filled with courage, I crossed the bridge familiarity built I asked him about his tattoo in Pidgin English He answered me in Esan and I understood (Even though I still don’t understand Esan) I looked at him well I had seen him before, That evening, in my grandmother’s room, When I lay shivering Fever’s hot hands held me, He came from the side of the room He came from the incense, Burning in my grandmother’s shrine beside the room He took Fever’s hand off my head and pushed him away, Fever falling awkwardly, broke my grandmother’s flask, Her favourite flask, in which she had boiled some Agbo for me, Sick or not, I took some flak for that, She loved that flask, a blue thermoline with a white helm He smiled and left dragging Fever feet first behind him Back into the incense Back into shrine He was a little younger then But I still recognized him, I had seen him a few times since then In the shadows or plumes of smoke, Waiting for the right time, ‘Agbonkhianmen’ He spoke my praise name with pride, “The world (or life) requires us to work for reward” I knew him I knew him well I knew him when he was blind, I showed him everything he knows And now he, in turn, must pry open my stubborn eyes Pa Okugbe, my apprentice and companion He reminded me of what I know, He took me to Urobe’s fertile grove And tried to show me my tree, I touched it before he spoke; My sacred tree, the one I never leave But have left for too long. I saw a palm-kernel in the sun And I saw the sun in the kernel of my palm Then, he asked me ‘Godman , what do your eyes see?’ As I told him my brothers, in chorus, strolled out of their trunks Naked, in the dim light of the sacred forest, ‘My eyes see the beginning and witness the end, My eyes see the light and the darkness’ The All knowing Alimonka Godmen reborn, I their lost brother return. |
Re: Three Excellent Poems by Nobody: 8:36am On Sep 05, 2012 |
I don`t know why but poems are easier heard than read. |
Re: Three Excellent Poems by Nobody: 1:20pm On Sep 05, 2012 |
Do you want an honest critical analysis of your poems? Let me know so I can comment again looking at them with honest eyes. |
(1) (Reply)
(amateur) My Life / Orphans Cry: Part 2 / An Artificial Language -part I
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 32 |