Poetry

Niyi Osundare

By

Bolaji Akinwande Akintola

Valedictorian

i

mortarboard weeps

out of school he stays

knowledgeably quarantined

tutors in petrified opulence

tell me, how shall i pop – hip

this uncertified scholarship?

or what adjective to this – irony?

ii

out of school – missing on transcript

quarantined behind the classrooms

his way to the library barred –

scholar without scholarship

future on the bier of destitution

o, sand to sand, dust to dust

in hearse we drive scholastics

through narrow horizon path

iii

this graduand procession

a march with coffin of books –

pyrotechnically on the arms

of teacher – undertakers

in uniformed caps and head-gears

marching future towards cemetery

iv

the graduands roll call

as good as sounding requiem

on quivering lips of frail excellents

whose last days in class

are feasting feast of red inks

but robed, capped mortarboards

v

o, didn’t we quarantine cognition?

no we broadened horizon

lowering – potentials – down the grave

in the colourful interment of brilliancy

with broad laughters of dirges

before a gravehead that reads:

HERE LIES THE REMAINS OF BRIGHT FUTURE.

Bolaji Akinwande Akintola

Bolaji Akinwande Akintola is a voracious reader, historian, teacher and a budding Nigerian poet. He bagged his Nigerian Certificate of Education in History/Islamic Studies from the prestigious Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education.

His works have been published by online magazines like The Museguide, The Village Thinkers, artMostterrific. He lives and writes from Ikorodu, Lagos.