First, let greetings of praise duly be said
To Him who made the seas and shaped the Earth.
Who created from this useless dust; before,
Man and genie, in worship, to rise and fall.

Who then made ink lifeless yet gave it life.
Made ink stagnant, yet with wings to fly.

Then,
A thousand is gone yet millions will come.
Of men sent to bestow limbs upon
The ink that laid passive in it's pot.

To give it life give it breath.
To give it hands give it head.
Legs and a mind to possess.
Freedom to where it wishes to tread.

Oh, great men of ink like winds of the harmattan.
Have come and gone, and yet remain in our time.
For like leaves of a giant poisoned tree behaved,
Dried, withered, fell, but yet not half erased.

Then allow me to say now as it is due.
That is should never ever be confused.

As some men had done times times before.
And by it fiery balls of wrath they incurred.

That after Shakespeare none hath come,
Armed in his bag of possession as half as much,
The prowess of him in poetry, prose and such.

For here is one that has emerged from us
One of our own and proudly yet our son.

With boldness he has crossed limits that none had dared.
He has stood up for us, and crushed with ink and pen,
Walls that gallant warriors of the past and present yet
Had hung on the high shelves of their biggest fears.

Oh great honourable people I have awhile
Taken so much of the limited gift of time.
To bathe you in my sweet waters of rhythm and rhyme.
To tempt you with my wordy dances of rhythm and rhyme.

Let me not take more for a bit of food is good.
And Slightly more than a bit is still food.
But slightly more than that is the definition of rude.

[Dedicated to my mentor, president of the Nairaland Poetry Club and ultra-skillful poet, OMA4U]

Laykorn, you are a great man. I really appreciate this poem. It goes a long way........

I will copy and keep this poem. Thank you, sir.