Poetry

June 9, 2017 Poetry , POETRY / FICTION

Reuters photo

By

So, It’s Been Time, For A Pound Of Flesh

Do I have your back?

There are no better ways,

To retain water, on the back of crabs:

So, I am making signature, of your word.

Stay on, I know you did say,

There is no giving up just yet.

I know I am somehow – a catastrophe.

Knowing how to fry an arse,

Put one over the burners.

At least, that’s one crazy way

To be mauled, after a graceless fall.

So, it’s been time, for a pound of flesh.

Dining With The Dead

This is where I have come to dine.

Postmortem hanging on the menu.

A plenipotentiary of the services of worms.

Hot chitter chatter

Of stern looking trolls, pervade the enclave.

They belched after a meal of death.

Yawned and belched again, a fever in Yiddish.

Gazed at me, a clandestine intruder.

No chatter of humans, but muted conversations

Of mouth less ghosts.

Gastric acid running at the guts.

Then I knew it was the wrong company.

I Command The Accent Of The Wind

Whisper to me

In between mouthfuls

Of irate sighs

Oh world

I command the accent

Of the wind

Tribal marks

On my thoughts

Berthing like a ship

Of pirates

My mind

Has become delusional

Out of my daily tussles

Encroaching on sanguine conversations

With the mediocrity

Of laws

I hate my reality

When everything mocks at me

From the state made laws

To my grumbling stomach

All stirring the rough waters

Of my mind

We Think It Is Safer

We think it is safer

To look the other way

When it is our neighbour’s gate

Pestilence has invaded.

We think it is safer

Not to give a helping hand

When it is our neighbour’s roof

Fire has gutted.

We think it is safer

To borrow more distance

To add up to the yards

We already enjoyed

When it is our neighbour’s barn

The yam beetles has invaded.

We think it is safer

To treat our poor neighbours

Like sub-humans

Worse than leprosy

By shutting them out

With fences

As high as the heavens

And curtains

As deadly as the razor teeth

Of a hungry crocodile.

We forget to remember

That neither the angry pestilence

Nor the starving crocodile

Is a kin to man.

We forget to remember

That the inferno

Which eats an acre

Can likewise devour a thousand acres.

When hunger hits our neighbour’s door step

We think it is safer

To be passive

And we throw our abundance to his face.

When it is our neighbour’s house

The tumor of despair has besieged

We take our delight and beg our pardon.

When it is our neighbour’s abode

The first cries and screams and shrieks

Are ringing from

We proud ourselves of a safe Haven.

But happiness is a no man’s land

And civil war is nobody’s first name

And your peace might be the next in line

To be scuttled.

What The Thunder Is Singing

What is the thunder singing

Grumbling and rumbling

In a loud metallic voice

Like a deaf and dumb

In ecstasy and groaning?

The thunder is as tipsy as a songbird

Drunk with joy

Boastful to a disgruntled cloud

Of the seasons that are to come

Boastful to a disgruntled cloud

So it sings to the ravenous sky

Like a deaf and dumb

Its sweet cherry rose songs

To brighten the frowning cloudscape.

Eddie Awusi is a Nigerian writer of Isoko extraction. He graduated from the prestigious Delta state university, Abraka in 2007, where, he got a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Literature. He believes in the universality of Arts and global citizenship of the creative and Imaginative artist.