Contemporary Poetry

The Child Downstairs

2012-01-18T08:34:00.000-08:00

Down south I lived downstairs
And Gee! I dreamt of life upstairs
It was a dream!
Only experience could tell what it did mean

In a rush, seeking safety like a meerkat
I docked myself under my hat
And headed straight up North
Attracted by the lights like a moth

Up North I lived upstairs
Up North my everything was life downstairs
And though not of misery void,
Could not be painted a tasteless tabloid

That dream I had
That dream I told dad
And with a pat he my roots
Did show me my life of shoots

Before embracing my dream beauty
Ne’er had I seen a sight so dreary;
Benumbing with frost biting cold
Stealing from the sun’s glow its gold

And the step I made forward
Revealed two steps backward
The embrace, the dread, the numbness, the frost bite
And I would never any mind divide

With head now to the East
With the sunrise I feast
And would you only a glance steal West
Where the twilights my sun take to rest.

Human History...!

2012-01-18T08:25:00.000-08:00

FOR YOUR READING ENJOYMENT!

LSS (Little Sacred Songs) VI

2011-08-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

Christ shed his Blood, wept and cried for mankind
Yet, man’s earthly dealings shows nothing so kind
With minds on high chair to drum each other
With songs of otherness far from order.
Like a tiger the strong hits hard the meek
And would say survival knows not the weak
Yet, the most high came in the lamb of Light
With great lessons, none of which about fight
For earthly grandeur, with one all seek first
The Kingdom in which we shall quench our thirst
Without any thoughts of this wilderness
Here on earth where those in power are mindless.
So, relent not for His Name’s sake stay strong
In mind and steer clear through you, comes no wrong!

Tuskegee University

2011-08-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

Does it really need to creep in as a dream
For those by the river to catch a bream
When more than a century and a quarter
Ago Washington dressed the painful tear
The blade of iniquity left on us
And for which we were treated worse than dross?
He’d seen the proud shroud cloud us with ignorance
And he chose to show us the importance
Of this awe-inspiring dream to this day
We see here giving us the right of way
We have just one choice to carry forward
With knowledge to reap a handsome reward
Left whole for us all to nurture and treasure
With wisdom and as such garner pleasure

Bill F NDI, © 2011

Books by Bill F NDI

2010-11-29T01:05:00.000-08:00

La lune à la une

2010-11-12T22:22:00.000-08:00

Une bonne vielle femme, belle comme la lune
Fut celle souvent vue à la une
Pour ses histoires troublant mon cœur
Avec ces richesses qui font peur
Mais à la une, cette belle vêtue
De torchons attire bien le flux
D’images inondant nos écrans
De misères loin de cours des grands.
Ce fut elle qui m’éleva
Sur sa terre nourricière…. Là… !

Nimbus, My Cry

2010-09-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

My dark cries the like of nimbus bring rain
If dickhead hears not all my cries the rain
Will hit him hard as hail and he will feel
These long years he has spooled mine on a reel
With jollity and merry-going-round
To bury facts for the grave all are bound
As my pens weep not only for his plight
But laugh at caitiffs putting up big fights
For the glorification of such goats
Who with their kind on rough sea rock the boats
Then jump up and down with flags of success
With all else going adrift in recess.

Anthem for Essingang

2010-08-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

O, macaroon covered with poor chicks' feathers

Go sit down and pride yourself in thievery

Like the slums your disgraceful flag shall fly

With your havoc to your name ever true

My father's house that once all tongue could tell

Has now become a house of thieves

So the rest of the world can see

The emblem of the tears of our people

Clan of mbokos, clan of bandits

With death and sadness in our store

Thine be disgrace, thine be great shame

And repudiation for evermore

That’s Him

2010-07-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

You’d go round the whole world
One you’d find summed in a word.
He means the whole world and Fonya
His name! For the meaning go to Africa!

Daddy Sixty

2010-07-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

Too late
Too late
With drooped open mouth I watch oldies
Here at Chatelet-les-Halles, they simulate
Youths every here and there in baggies
Would that reduced their age! Too late!
Again,
A gain?

Too late
To state
We have come short of the glory of age
As we strive to put our youths off their stage
With no thoughts in ours we fought to be free
From robes of constraints worn on liberty,
The grain
We gain!

01/07/2010

Sea of Poverty.

2010-01-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

Were I to translate poverty into poetry,
Everybody would need to climb up a big tree
To see the damage done to my father’s nation
’Tis such none can rescue with any injection.
This ailment upheld by the rotten tip of state
Who’s washed away all the hopes we wrote on a slate
Erupting a silent volcano at his birth
Letting flow all that which his fine luster hid, dirt.
He’s garbage incarnate wired to birth misery
With lengthy motions in hope to stay in history
And not in the memory the nation has of him
As one who wrecked all hopes and made power his whim
To which only the sane pens do refuse to bow
Yet, those of the herded scribes would go for the here and now
Aggrandizing evil for self aggrandizement
In a mad rage by those seeking part in government
Not one f or the people but one on them imposed
Leaving the nation, with poverty, overdosed
With a king and his mentally and morally
And the people and their kin broke financially
Explaining why none needs the big tree of poetry
To fish poverty blooming in our land it’s sea.

What men and their friends (men and women alike) should learn about love!

2009-12-21T10:57:00.000-08:00

When Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall and had a great fall,
Most men never understood trifling with a woman in love
would bring home the same drama. So one man tried it out
With a woman who loved him and bore him children.
Guess what! She left for a loving man.
That's when the forsaken man's men did their best
They would want the relationship up again like all the King's men
Trying to put Humpty Dumpty up again.

Blurred Vision

2009-12-17T07:20:00.000-08:00

Thoughts of my love clamping up
Drive home a question: what’s up?
The air we breathe was for long pure.
This clamping worsens things anew!

Thus, naively, I was schooled to see
A problem shared, one lost at sea
When unshared would create a great rift
That would set all pure love adrift.

Knowing this, I would my best do
Hoping my love did do hers too.
Then and then we shall gracefully
Sail ever after happily.

In this, the world would read black art
Not understood for they’re not smart;
Hiding hearts’ foliage to love’s light,
The greatest cure to all hearts’ plight!

Problems abound, love conquers all
With no need to receive a call
From Jimmy Little’s telephone
That has been a hard to chew bone.

Your Wish, Your Tag

2009-12-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

In my death the light I see your world shan't!
Yet, that unsung dirge I can hear you chant
Disturbing my reposing soul at rest
Which alive you made subject of arrest;
Its crime? A choice of a path unwanted
Straight with merciless greed in you loaded.

You may have me buried physically
This to you I have done spiritually
And shan't with you flex muscles to show off
When you and your tag are not worth a slough
In my society, your place is in jail
Unknown to you perjury invites no bail.

12/15/2009

My Van Heusen Shirt

2009-11-30T07:59:00.000-08:00

My Van Heusen shirt cost me fifty cents,
A dollar ninety-nine to clean and scent
After the hundredth clean I had a two
Hundred dollar shirt after one year too!
Its worth in cash my economist says
Depreciates come each passing day that plays.

Long live this name who's got the cash and fame
With my hopes for any all left with shame
And a higher end shirt with a mark that pricks
And picks the pocket with such lovely tricks
My mind would let grasp these higher end goods
That empty our purses and carry loots!

Promises to Keep: A Christmas Poem**

2009-11-29T07:57:00.000-08:00

Two years ago the newly governor-elect,
told party delegates at a first conference
how he promised his widowed mother
he would be honest and never take bribes.

“She said: ‘Now, that you won, son,
whatever you do, be honest’.”
“And I told her: ‘Oh, of course Mom,
I’ll be honest because that’s how you raised me’.

“She said: ‘That’s good, son, I know you will.
Let me ask you another question.’
I said, ‘What’s that?’
‘Promise me, son, you will never take bribes’.

“I said: ‘Of course I’ll never take bribes,
not only would that be dishonest
it would be illegal,
and I would never do anything to dishonor
the memory of my father’***.”

“She said: ‘That’s good, son,
I’m sure you won’t,
but I just want to remind you
because that’s how mothers are’.
I said: ‘I know’.

“She said: “Let me ask you another question.’
I said: ‘What’s that?’
She said: ‘Do you think you can
get Aunt Daisy’s son-in-law a job?’
I said: ‘I dunno,
I’ll try’.”

Two days ago,
or two weeks
to 'a very presidential' Christmas,
our duly elected governor
was led abroad from his home
by the FBI...

Achirri Ishmael
December 13, 2008.

EPILOGUE

2009-11-29T07:56:00.000-08:00

"I imagine myself in the New World
with Christopher Columbus
for he first time,"

(he mused the following year,
recalling the events at Roy-au-mont)

"A symphony of sounds,
of colors,
of smells,
of desires,
and of hopes.

Then I imagine myself
on the moon
with the astronauts,

and all I see
is gray,
dust,
and barren rocks,

and the earth I long for

is far
out of reach..."

Achirri Ishmael
7 November, 2009

Loops of Memory*

2009-11-29T07:53:00.000-08:00

I had forgotten to tell him
about their presence
until it occurred to me.

"Would you love to join the discussion
with Chomsky, Piaget,
and the others?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said kindly,
"Just tell me when".

That was during the conference
at Abbaye de Roy-au-mont,
just outside Paris.

He sat patiently
and followed the speakers.

It was a loud conference
of op-positions.

But his doodle of cats
and other real fantastic animals,
I can't recall exactly,
were stunning...

On the way to our last lunch,
Noam Chomsky,
who had dominated this gathering
of Nobel Prize winning biologists and world famous mathematicians,
philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, (& etc),

walked up to him,
and shyly said:

"Perhaps
you remember me,
when I sat in your class at Harvard
with Roman Jakobson?"

He looked at Chomsky,
and slowly said:

"I'm sorry, but no".

Those were the only words
he would utter
in that conference.

By Achirri Chibikom 2009

Poetry

2009-11-17T19:45:00.000-08:00

Gives you wings
Choice to sing
Freedom to fly
Not one to ply
Yet, one to land
And with a band
Take off without remorse
Landing back to concourse
With neither fear
Nor favour clear
In sight of cowards
With simple words.

Fertile Imagination

2009-11-17T19:29:00.000-08:00

I took my niece to a department store.
Her touchy hands did give me a heart sore!
Upon rebuking her inquisitive hands,
“I touch with my eyes and see with my hands!”
She said with such certainty to astound
The sages of yore claiming their minds sound
Where in my niece I would just a poet see
With my pen in hand, I let the world see
How with the hands this can be possible
Even if all think it impossible!

Senile King B…

2009-11-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

Who said sunset was not a medicine man?
Is the gruesome night with mysterious calm
Not the devil himself who would smile
At this old fool driven and left senile
To thinking himself Donne’s busy old fool
Swimming in ignorance, his glorious pool?

Old senile King, after twenty seven
Odd years, you’ve left our country so broken
By your deep greed the waters of the seas
Won’t come close to washing the joy that fills
Your measure so corrupt earning your name
That stinks a stench so putrid; what a shame!

The Good Old Sikh & Us

2009-11-13T11:06:00.000-08:00

They would have loved to come in droves
As we sat watching flighty doves,
This good old Sikh behind his house
At Sugar Pine Court pined like a mouse

Contemplating peace that cloudy afternoon
Dreaming the sun peed peace here on earthly spoon
For the world to sip with pipes underground
Black gold running the ship of peace aground

This took our good old Sikh again behind
The house to scoop humans out of the bind;
In quiet meditation nodding to the world
Such abysmal nod that’s devoid of a word.

After Aliens

2009-11-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

Everywhere, they’re after the aliens!
What crime they committed they know not!
But must be given names in every tongue!
Till they become hyphenated

And tagged home office made
Far from homeland born
In French let’s call them émigrés
Send them to South Africa they’ll become

Ma-kwe-re-kwe-re
If by accident they land in West Africa?
Imagine just how everywhere names shall sprout
Leaving no room they’re after the aliens!

My Fate, Their Gamble

2009-11-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

Even if I need not cry, my pains must not go
Unheard by those who my progress would want to slow
I’ve amassed my strength and would like to fly sky-high
Far above foxes and kites thinking themselves sly.
My shadow must not only be left in the clouds
But cover them to mystify just like the shroud

Holding in it a secret to the world of men
So hidden to turn its life all amazement
Birds ply the skies, the eagle above all reign
Wherein the jungle only the lion pulls the rein
And would not on the same table dine with lame dogs
Among men herding flocks with big support from thugs

Thugs who would beat me to crying my pain aloud
Such pains I must not cry but make heard and be proud
Brut force fails where admittance of liability
Would have readily bred freedom and liberty
For all those like me refusing this wild trampling
Which always leaves heads and thugs with my fate gambling

Unlike the birds of the sky, topsy-turvydom
Is the catch word and in which jungle? No kingdom!
No kingdom for the lion priding itself the King
In the mist of such confusion a bush was king
Too blind ruling over the oil wells of the east
With the impunity of an absolute beast

James 1 would rule this world in demonology
And bring the beast and himself up to some deities
Theeing and thouing as par great nature;
This ploy to bring down the mighty, sure
Would make him greater than great in the eyes
Of those before whom about me he lies.

Dreams Die Not

2009-11-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

When dreams mature, they cease to be dreams.
When streams dry up they cease to be streams.
One dream I had, I thought would bear fruits
Let my stream flow into its conduits
Without dam built but quickly emptied
To leaving my dream in stream buried.
But how wonderful dreams do not die
Like a hungry poor deprived of pie!
And buried ’live won’t be dreams that live
To be killed only by disbelief
We need kill to give the figment life
Leaving every tongue to say hi-five!

Just Today

2009-11-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

Early morning daddy died!
Late this morning uncle died!
Early afternoon mum died!
Late afternoon auntie died!
Not before long brother died!
Shortly after cousin died!
Whose turn comes in this evening?
Shall he hit before the evening?
Where was he when we were kids?
Why is he here indeed?
You may as I wonder why?
Yes, he comes as aids; that’s why!
And his origin remains
Mystery in preserved domains
Where we live in hope to die;
Death our only hope won’t lie
To say our unborn babies
Are turned rock without ages
Just today, this today unjust
Hands turn poor lives into dust.

Upon the King’s Death

2009-11-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

Shall my country feel let down?
Yes! The King’s! When he shall drown!
In his mansion flooded with wealth
That from our nation steals good health

Like cancer compounding with might
Our socio-political plight
That’s left our nation depleted;
So, why must the King not be ejected?

Now and just now push him to drown
And let woe sweep him off the ground;
Our ground he has stolen and sold
Wanting his deeds to go untold.

Upon making the scribe beggar
He makes his might appear bigger
Giving to him and his a leeway
To duplicate highwaymen: Waylay!

Our nation victim of this ambush
Has sent many a young man to the bush
Where we see they’ve fallen like angels
Heaven’s sounds sent away to hell not bells.

Baby Ambasonia

2009-10-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

Was from time immemorial born
Was through time and age grown
Was of the Federal Republic lured
Was of the united Republic deterred
And by the La République killed
And in death tied to the skilled
Assassin since in hiding gone
By his wall of soldiers and canon
Shielded
By the whole wide world greeted.
Need not emphasise a true story
For all know and none does worry.

Poor Baby Ambasonia
From your ashes rebirth is so near
For my belief in this myth
Has nothing of a heath.

A Cellphone

2009-10-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Badinant avec le Noir

2009-10-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

Tranquilles, nous fûmes à la rive
Ne voyant pas la dérive
Voulant nous voir loin de Bavière
Nous poussèrent-ils dans la rivière
Sans bateau et ou sans espoir
Furent-ils maîtres et firent les lois
Nous colonisant y compris
Cons ainsi que sages à tout prix ;

Prix que nous payons depuis lors
Pour la couleur noire de cet or
Identique à celle des peaux noires
Noircissant blancheur d’abreuvoirs
Qui vaille que vaille doivent couler
A flot pour les étanchés
Ayant tout sauf notre rire
Même s’ils croient notre cas pire !

Coûte que coûte, ils pratiquent les maux
Où nous avons le dernier mot
Justifiant pour quoi derrière nous
S’acharnent-ils comme des loups garous
Voraces en quête de proie facile
Qui nie de rendre difficile
Leur jeu de bourreaux arythmiques
Aux calculs bien mathématiques ;

Pour eux une récréation sportive
Pour nous badinage subversif
N’amusant que les régisseurs
De malveillant joug de la peur
Bourdonnant dans les oreilles noires
Permettant de faire couler à boire
Pouvant assouvir les futés
Qui par ailleurs sont disputés.

$£¥€

2009-10-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Our best fight we put to host
These strangers who’ll never their hosts’
Expectations meet sincerely
Where all hosts do for them truly
Die leaving their leafy green backs
Here as hosts have left stabs on backs
Killing, lying, slandering for them
With sane minds to see shit in them;
Such strangers who never come stay
But on man’s psychology prey
And his world does turn upside down
God bless America won’t drown
Flying the flag by such strangers
Flown and guarded by their rangers.

SCHIZOPHRENIE NATIONALE

2009-10-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

Comment peut-on être Camerounais ?
Le français est-elle ma langue maternelle ?
Non, je suis né à Bamenda où l’on ne le parle pas.
Comment peut-on être Camerounais ?
L’anglais est-elle ma langue maternelle ?
Non, je suis né à Bertoua où l’on ne le parle pas.
Suis-je même Camerounais ?
Vraiment, je le crois et m’en expliquerai
Mais de ‘pure ethnie’ qu’en sais-je et qu’importe ?
Ne m’insultez pas !
Séparatiste ? Autonomiste ? Régionaliste ?
Tout cela, rien de cela. Au-delà !
Mais alors, nous ne nous comprenons plus.

Qu’appelez-vous Camerounais ?
Et d’abord, pourquoi l’être?
Question nullement absurde.
Camerounais d’état-civil, je suis nommé Biafrais.
J’assume à chaque instant ma situation de Camerounais;
Mon appartenance au Cameroun,
N’est en revanche qu’une qualité facultative
Que je puis parfaitement renier ou méconnaître.
Je l’ai d’ailleurs fait ;
J’ai longtemps ignoré que je suis Camerounais.

Camerounais sans problème,
Il me faut donc être Anglophone en surplus.
Camerounais sans ambages,
Il me faut donc être Francophone en plus.
Si je perds cette conscience,
L’appartenance cesse d’être en moi.
Le Camerounais n’a pas de pièces d’identité,
Il n’existe que dans la mesure où,
A chaque génération,
Des hommes se reconnaissent Camerounais.
A cette heure, des enfants naissent à Bamenda,
Seront-ils Camerounais ?
A cette heure, des enfants sont mis au monde à Bertoua,
Seront-ils Camerounais ? Nul ne le sait.
A chacun, l’âge venu, la découverte ou l’ignorance.

© Peter Vakunta

Ink and ench

2009-10-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

The clinker boat's
boards are clenched

As clink is to clench
So drink is to drench
And stink is to stench

Therefore should
we not allow
pink is to pench
wrink is to wrench
frink for the French?

Henchmen may give
(a word to the wise)
a wink to a wench
a bink on a bench
and other inventions
too mincing to mention?

©Phillip Mahnken
11 October 2009

Strong Rock Solid Love

2009-10-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

My word my bond with you here will stay
Far from the love that did rot away
For you so love me that I won’t doubt
And if I did so, I won’t call out
As I do by the day and by night
Showing you the love that’s yours by right.

Here I sit and here I wait, you in mind
Being the special find by mankind
Sought after in that love threadbare world
In which like the serpent hatred curled
Around in wait for the innocent
In order to prey on sentiments

Where you are, there I am on my marks
Ready to take you home with no barks
For those dogs willing to still our move
To push our love right atop the roof
Shading new meaning to the word love
With sound knowledge of peace brought by dove

Here we are, love we know that will stay
With no one able to make her sway
From this gleeful glide on these smooth rails
Leading home a love that blazes trails
For dreamers who slain their dreams way back
With no thoughts someday it will come back.

Now we know what to keep that we’ve found
Which is what in love will keep us bound
Together loving and respecting
Each other with just no misgiving
But thanks giving to the light that lights
Love’s path on which we tread without plights.

Count the lines; know the span it’ll survive
In the eyes of men striding in life
All clad in abjection fanning flames
Heating up the air for baseless claims
Claims that in our union has no grounds
Where our rock solid love’s ever sound.

Two kind pipole

2009-10-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

Whiteman bin too like Blackman
Ye come for long take Blackman
Make ye ninga for long time
Di gi ye big taste for lime
When ye want go ye spoil place
Like nko di chakara place.

Chop Chop Club

2009-10-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

Chop a chop bin be dia mimba
For get chop dem make we ninga
Ninga dem we no want for be
Bicos which mop no like honey?
Dem tif all money sey na crish
Don cam catch economic finish
De small lep whey we bin get am
And we see dia plate carry yam,
Dem hold knife with fork want for chop
Na taim make we pipole sey stop
Bicos wonder fit foolish pass
We no go leave dem fool we pass
Since we no want drink dat quinine
Whey dem shi don no scratch dem skin
Some man must tell papa chop chop
Sey yi must fill up wia cup
No be with lie lie promise dem
We want na just true true one dem
Bifo we go sing choir for ye
So teh ye no go forget we
Whey we Kill dia club for chop chop
Whey boma dem di chop no f’ll-up.

Patience is All

2009-10-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Just when I was about to give all up
I saw sincerity marked on love’s face
By Patience; she was patient with grace
That off my feet knocked and swept me to drop

Head over heels as if by a spell doomed
To this life of happiness as a groom
With honey textured soul in readiness
To cast away that life of moodiness!

With such love am I graced to embrace her
With my glance at her, looking no further
As the bells resound with marital bliss
Leaving me nor any room for a bliss

Tell me why the world I shouldn’t give up
For one so dear lifting me to the top
In form and in spirit full with pleasure
Caressing the heart, knowing no measure.

The strength of love bonds with understanding
Giving our show to the world, astounding
And hoping not in history such would be
You the bee that produces sweet honey

And who said honey was sweet? You’re sweeter!
You make the bitterness in life slumber
Like one who has come and come till he can’t
Embrace and understand jack by Kant.

But once into your bee hive with honey
Full, the genius in him would spite money
And would start digging in nature, pleasure
As would any hunter hunt his treasure.

My Patience had laid patiently in wait
And such treasures as Patience are no bait
But babes to be cherished and lavished well
With love that runs deep, the like of my well!

Prayer for Cameroon Anglophone Poetry

2009-08-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

O, Come,
Come O
Muse! Muse!
Come knock at our doors!
We will warm you with the flames,
Anglophone Cameroon burning bright
Under which roof you shall not be in the cold
Leaving your hungry hunters stories to be told.
Muse
O
Muse
Come
O
Come
Hand in glove
We’ll make love
Stain sheets
Take fleets
Free our offspring
No attached string
In a world far from this fashion
One with love and not contention
Not even when you prick
A call with which I click
And pick up my weapon
And with tears of joy mourn
This joyful moment
I would recommend
Should come and stay
So, we don’t stray!
Muse
O
Muse
Come
O
Come
Come and stay with us
Fill our empty purse
Tickle our brain
With windblown train
Whose sound good music make
As our ears’ savoury cake
Like your name so smooth
As you stand for truth
Only our kind die to hear
When crown and mitre wear fear
Forgetting in tears we drown
When they make solid the ground
In which they conceal us poor souls
Dishonouring our totem poles:
Muse
O
Muse
Come
O
Come
Glaze that assassinating mind
Making of it loving and kind
O, Come,
Come O
Muse! Muse!

The Home

2009-08-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

Home was fun
With bright sun
And I left home and headed West
And was told that’s where oldies rest
There I went to see for myself
The oldies resting on the shelf
In their home without so much fun
A world in which they are forlorn

The Mad Queen

2009-08-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

Carrying her crown of money
She would she swam in honey
When her heart lets flow lava
To turn sweet honey bitter
A fit she reckons is cute
For madness is her repute
Parading darkness by day
Begging sympathy for pay
All true eyes and ears won’t heed
But would get rid of as weed.

The Commoner’s Promise

2009-08-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

Not to hold the top of it.
To clean the servant’s shit.
How true is this when truth comes?
Shit he unleashes as comes
With convulsive pleasures
Thrusting rapists’ treasures
And waddle as strongman
Where foundation not man
Needs be mightily strong
To point to him he’s wrong.

Red Light Camera

2009-05-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

With such hungry looks
Your eyes would in books
Scratch their hands in pockets
Your eyes' resting sockets
To drain empty tear ducts
From those whose misconducts
Painfully pricked your eye
To give the king his pie;
By the by you’re his guard
Driving bad drivers mad.
Could I say thank you
And not be bad too?

Racing Waves

2009-05-19T17:54:00.000-07:00

The waves race endlessly to the sea
As if the wind had forced them ashore
In a union they would none did see
Them sneaking out of the house of whores

With them carrying stinking morsel smell
Debilitating the nose through a spell
Once cast like a fishing net sweeping bed
Clean of ocean’s little lovely well-bred

No doubt their oil nourishes human brain
And warranty in old age man is sane
With his grey matter falling not as prey
In the game of life which Alzheimer’s play

Pushing to quickly forget things men want
Not recalling how they dropped off the pant
In that house they sneaked out of forced by waves
After prostrating to the drive as slaves

Giving in to the master’s caprices
Hoping their dreams aren’t shattered into pieces
Rather waves waver not in their strong push
To send off such belongings to the bush

For they need not dwell in human thinking
So preoccupied with nothing but fish drowning
Oblivious to the grace of waves majestic moves
That will never trample on human eyes with hooves

But let them enjoy the grace of waves’ racing dance
Not for the weak at heart who would all fall in trance
Not off the hook for their forfeiture in the house
Committed and outside making up they have no nous

Race on waves and bring to these eyes that sole beauty
Your dance alone moving ships brings humanity
The soothing calm the corrupt would you washed away
But, come ashore and make sure such hopes at bay stay!

Epitaph

2009-05-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

Finally, I go unto Death,
With wings of fire
And breath of ice.
And he welcomes me,
At last, with open arms
And open heart.
Finally, I am home.

© Melissa Ryan, ALW 240

Mindstate Dweller

2009-05-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

When I think this city I think empty trams, empty seats,
steady hands, steady feet, stolen land, stolen fee,
Never feeling free, always feeling eyes watching me,
Disguised democracy, fake economy, no apologies,
Squandering property, cement towers nature’s mockery,
Tyrannical monarchy and material authority
Never stopping me from constantly traversing the city
Thirsting with intrigue conversing and dispersing earnest mystique,
Streets aren’t pristine: imperfections are the blitzkrieg
Prestigious soliloquies of ominous liberty
Offered by imagery of trapped sidewalks across the map,
Stride forth my back attached to a packed nap sack.
Cramped with stacks of bricks: chipped cracked and dented.
Paths: skipped tracked and ventured. The lasting gift that beckons
Presence remembered, endless adventure treading
Dimensions spreading and collecting
so the severance of heaven is mending
This journey I’m accepting through eager alleyways
Find a secret passage paved behind reality’s barricade
Free from the masquerade, souls lost no accomplices
Coveting confidence collagen blocking their oxygen
Clotting the bottom of competence in this rotten metropolis
Modern apocalypse where we cotton pick novices
With pocketed politics into dominant covetous lobbyists
Forgotten with sin, lost by kin, but beauty still exists within

© KIERON DONALD BYATT

Shoes

2009-05-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

O captors of my feet,
why won’t you set me free?
To walk,
to run,
to feel the sand between my toes,
the squelch of mud,
the points of stones,
the glorious ground beneath my feet.
To burn,
to freeze,
to soak in the wondrous rain.
O why won’t you let me live?

©Melissa Ryan ALW 240

Wind Sings to the Trees

2009-02-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

When the wind gently blows trees don’t nod disagreement
Dancing her soft music calls for no disagreement
Unlike our kings whose open mouths do bring storms
Uprooting trees and leaving not even their stumps
With populace all dragged in heavy chains
And led to far off lands afoot mountains
Where to them intone are dirges for joy
Soft and gentle accomplishing a ploy
For kings’ happiness at tolling the knell
Which they do joy at hearing masses yell,
Yelling at daunting evil incarnate
Bringing before them such never seen hate
Where kings are meant to be noble at heart
Preserving nations from being torn apart
Like wind’s music calling us by our name.
When this shall come to pass, so shall kings’ fame.

When we intone our music for kings’ dancing
Pleasure, at us, they cruelly start biting
Hoping we’ll cower and stoop low to their
Hellish hope to inter our dreams to fare
In a land never before promised man
But such promise we must make sure we can
So kings’ storm will never bring to shore waves
Or would do so to sweep them to their graves
Then the gentle breeze that sings to tree leaves
Would sing and hailed with our sighs of relief
For change shall have come
To us full-scale calm.

Love Hope

2008-12-30T15:40:00.000-08:00

There were ten endless years of wait
Which in them did hide hope as bait
Picked and swallowed were blown in a second
Gone is the mansion of such a fecund
Hope
Dope
That once turned our desert green
Now turning our green bloom grim
With eternity to say who was right
Not remembering the endless years of fight
With despair it will never come to pass
Which did and our lesson learned out of class
In which the school of life reserves no formula
To grace the lives of those who swear by the kola
Throwing its peelings to tell our future
Or cast a look at our woe like vultures
Tending to a wounded game on the highway

As hope on us preyed in our wait; such they pray!

THE LUNCH HOUR

2008-12-30T01:41:00.000-08:00

Oh Dear, Thank God
The time has come once again.
And now, the buzz will begin.
Reminiscent of sounds
of bees making honey
in the deep silent jungle.

The 12th chime of the
hour clock is a “whoops”
for the Aussie stomach

A time of great expectations
And even greater preparations.
Where the choice of a lunch box
is as important as its contents.

Missing the lunch hour
is unthinkable.
Having no plans for it
is unforgivable.
A cardinal sin against “tete - a - teteing”

A perfect time to romanticize
the act of eating, and
squeeze the final drop of gossip
from unsuspecting lunchers.

A time to escape the
pressures of “officialdom”
and boredoms of work!
This, I suspect,
the prime reason(s)
for such enthusiastic
embrace for a subset of worktime.

The aussie lunch hour
Is a spectrum of
changing emotions.

From that of great expectation
To that of greater trepidation
as the last chime of the hour
hits the pit of the stomach.

The shuffling gaits back to work
contrasts the happy strides
towards the Lunch hour
A sad ending to such happy beginnings.

Oh dear, Dear God.
How time flies!.
As back to Work beckons

©UCHE

THE GIFT OF YOU

2008-12-29T03:55:00.000-08:00

Love in its truest form
Has no language or words,
It just has a thousand and one actions

It makes a weak man brave
And a king step off his throne

Love symbolizes eternity
And wipes away all senses of time and distance,
Removing all memories of a beginning
And all fears of an end

It is sweet, delicate, and dreamy
An eternity of gorgeous moments.
Sitting snugly like a piece of art,
Where even the tiniest stroke of paint
Is simply beautiful.

Love resembles a bright flame
That lightens a dark starry night
Created not to reside in hearts
But to be given away.

As this lonely valentine approaches
My memory is filled with images
Images of our love and affection
Of moments we have shared
And will share.

I treasure each and every image
More important, I treasure the gift of you
For I know deep within me
To find true love is rare.

©UCHE

ILLUSIONS OF DISTANCE

2008-12-29T03:47:00.000-08:00

The distance may be a thousand miles
But hold on my baby,
The cuddle is just beyond the horizon.

Night after night I dream of you
Yet, these illusions are insufficient
As the pain of our distance remains
As constant as the setting sun.

Never before have I felt this way
A whole new feeling
Eating sweetly yet deeply
Into my very being
The pressures and tensions mounting
As you stand lovingly in the distance
Waving the ace for my release.

I love you
Wait awhile for me
I will be beside you
Soon and forever,
This I promise.

©UCHE

Fire and Ice (This was written after some red wine!! Do not take too seriously please…)

2008-11-05T19:42:00.000-08:00

When I met u
I loved u,
U spoke of family
So softly
Just united
Not divided,
U r my love, my passion,
Not just a welfare ration,
U r black-I am white,
I came from Luxemburg,
And I am no iceberg,
I want to grow with u,
I want to fcuk with u,
U r my man,
One of the clan
in my dream
let me dream!

© Katrina M. Joiner. (BSC Nursing, R.N.) Unsuccessful arts degree candidate !!!

So There

2008-11-05T19:41:00.000-08:00

u don’t understand the conviction of practicality
u don't understand the conviction of luve
u don't care about walking in front of cars
u don't care about finance in a socially acceptable way
u see travel as something 4 the mobile classes u not included
u want a car an office mobile phone just 2 say u r ok
u won’t draw paint write take photos until u r ready........

©Katrina M. Joiner. (BSC Nursing, R.N.) Unsuccessful arts degree candidate !!!

Rave

2008-11-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

i remember being in the cab,
it was not drab,
it was ok by me, but the fair was too expensive,

i know about that room
it had no gloom,
the reason for that was the heart attack sign

it is always the mineral that people search 4
the gold the sin and the frankincense
and i know i am write for the first time in my life.

©Katrina M. Joiner. (BSC Nursing, R.N.) Unsuccessful arts degree candidate !!!

A Place I Called Home

2008-09-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

I used to know a place called home
And when summer came it was our Rome
Where by the door Papa would his arms stretch
And the blessings he poured had no stench

But one day the phone rang
Bringing news bigger than the big bang
He heeded a call from far above
Turning down all our hopes and love

And to bit him farewell, we got home
Home was not home
Rome was far and gone
And stolen was the Sun

The Sun that our summers did brighten
Echoed news of how frighten
The nation once was as news came
The dictacrat washed down the drain, fame.

Yet, I knew home was still home
For sweet, sweet mother built a honey comb
From the waves that did dry our tears
’N America the gates flooded with tears & fears

Tears and fears, in arrears we had
Not just in war torn Iraq and Chad;
Today, go not there with this in mind
Go not there hoping for a find

For heart and head of home having stopped
Of joys and hopes we are robbed;
And beyond the still buildings some call home
Nowhere near papal bliss in Rome;

Life is a million light years.
But closer than close to fears and tears
With only tyrants to set the rules
Hoping to work to death the willing mules

In this once upon a time place called home
The boys in green the streets roam
Where parents would not they’re grown
And they in them keep the calm away blown

Where Peace and military are antithetic
For the latter birthed a bomb atomic;
Yet, our soldiers here keep the Peace
By hook or by crook and breaking one apiece.

Away from that coxcomb
Order home like hair with a comb
Letting just wind touch the scalp
But beating like flax the soldier’s slap.

A war mongering lord his rule set
And De Gaulle might have said:
“Get ready for war to attain Peace.”
So, the reverse of courtship for peace.

And away from home, the globe, our village
Has the waves set on rage
Stealing the peace the kid I was knew
But, won’t stop my dream of home anew!

By mom and dad supported
By that ring disappointed
And by the dictatcrat and war mongrel robbed
Anguish and despair for the idyll are bobbed!

Countrymen, willing mules, those laws
Into you forced like tiger claws
Into its prey forced, ’bide not by
Contain pains with no cry!

A cry, tyrants won’t even hear
Or in which they’d only read fear
Displayed by weak and feeble mules cowering
For not the left and right knowing

Then shall tyrants see need for growing
To feed peace loving mules their blessing
And home shall be home sweet as honey comb
Sweet honey comb sweeter than bliss in Rome.

And gone has been that ring
That news of bigger big bang did bring
And farewell we’ll bid tyranny
To have a phoney free story.

Once again, this place will be home
Where children feel the smoothness of chrome
And dreamers will freely dream
And mornings will joy on faces beam

And why won’t home be home once again
When pains mules stood are now a gain?
And once again the sun will for all shine
Leaving none not even the blind.

05-13/07/08
Last 6 stanzas composed 19/09/08

Before You Hang Me

2008-09-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

Hate or oppress me
Hang or shoot me
Burn or bury me…!

But before this twist
Let me clench my fist
Let me provide a gist:

Let me sing
To the men and their king
A Song that like bee sting

Awakes them to the load
Carried by us with a moral code
Reduced like some toad

Cast with a spell
Shut in a well
With no story to tell.

Hearing my song
They shall see what’s wrong;
Take the orders then for me to be wrung.

Shooting, hanging, wringing solve not the problem
But attracts a boo for an anthem
Leaving blood, fire and grief as their emblem.

As of stone they have made their hearts
None will ever to them doff their hats
But all will confirm they replicate rats.

Then and only then
smoulder me, not my pen
With flames before I count ten.

Peacefully, I shall die
Heartily, my spirit will fly
Disgracefully, will the king comply.

I shall be death but not gone.
The People shall have, with the king, done
For prising from them their dawn.

Haiku

2008-08-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

rain across caulfield station /
a young woman touching /
grey mobile to lips

*

two couples /
enter the house opposite /
- the trees shake

*

small boys playing
in the backyard -
the silent passage of clouds

*

revving angels /
god in a van /
venus pearl in midnight's purse

*

my life /
a Morrissey song or few /
- even All the Lazy Dykes

© Glenn Harper

Blood & Fire

2008-07-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

My pen wept
And silently waited for the head of this nation
To be swept
And swept away by flood
From the nation,
Its tears and blood,
The blood he has spilled,
The blood my pen did bleed
In stead of the suffering in this nation,
Save the king’s
Who misery brings
To deprive them of their own ration.

Like the eagle soaring high
My pen spat fire
To burn the king
In hopes of the day of reckoning
When power will return to the streets
Where it belongs and not on sheets
Altered at the king’s guise
For his make believe disguise.

Today, lamenting over my people’s plight
News came to me my country tonight
Bathes in blood and is on fire
And by thoughts of extrication from the quagmire
Carried away, I sat up to do justice
To my people who’ve only borne injustice.
So, I have to burn at midnight
Its candle before going to bed tonight
And hoping it brightens the warriors’ path
For laughs, smiles and jubilation as aftermath
Of a struggle for freedom
Which for years eluded the kingdom.

27/02/08.

Chop Chair (Thank Choir for Tabenken.)

2008-06-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

For Bamenda
We bin tanap far
When Papapol bin chop chair
Yi come for show we chair
Yi come sey yi don bring we shawa
We gree sey na trutrue shawa,
Dat one whey we Papa for up
Don put hand on top.
Spear grass grow for we foot
As we bin di think sey na good thing for stay put
Wait sey make de blessing
Come from dat shawa, we start di sing
Year dem come di pass
And then we see sey yi bin look we na like jackass
Since for we Mbe dem
Papapol yi one bin pass all dem
Dem carry yi go enter Ngumba house
Leave yi for carry all juju for dey go for yi house.
We Mbe dem don loss their voice
Like that ants dem whey bin loss their voice
After dem bin drink strong cough merecine
Today na we dey meng bicos we no get merecine.

07/02/08

Tears for Peace and Love

2008-06-11T03:35:00.000-07:00

Passions, humans do express in ways different
Some positions totally indifferent
Some in the aquarium, the gold fish
Freedom deprive and others in their plates relish!

From within my soul I caged a bird
A bird I caged from birth
Making it my everything
When the world turn around to nothing!

Chased out of the window is the dove!
And the tears from my eyes sing for Peace and Love
And query what is to this world left, if the poet
His voice loses and sings not his part in the duet?

Let the tears roll down the cheeks
Let them roll to fill all the creeks
With the poet’s natural glove
He wears for mankind to find that grove.

Being all poets let’s head for the dove
And bring him home, with our heads up above
Up above the mire of blood they would we drowned
In. Poets do ignominy drag down! Down, down, down!

08-09/06/08

Poet’s Heart’s Desire

2008-06-09T16:27:00.000-07:00

Craving and praying for Peace
He does believe in Peace
Not just individual Peace
But world Peace
And wonders how it can be found
Needing no trumpet to sound
Needing no bark from a hound
To leap on board and homeward bound
Finding Peace streaming from conscience
Needing no science
Calling for lots of Patience
But the interment of nescience.
Gently guiding towards her
He shows she is not far
And that like a star
Far from anything scar
She does shine
With rays so fine
Like the sun’s twilight’s decline
The Heart’s desire’s holy shrine.

No Talk

2008-05-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

Her father said nothing
No speaking at the table,
was the order of the day
At the table only eating.

Faces formed by the food
on the plate smiled and stared
at her as she ate.

She made roads and rivers
and patted it down,
a faced smiled up at her
and she laughed like a clown.

A clip round the ear from mother,
who sat near.
Father looked up on his face
a scowl.
The other kids smiled
This will put her in her place.
Father pointed to the hallway
But nothing was said.
She soon got the message
and quickly fled.

Back to the table, five minutes had passed
she burped very loudly ,
and all the kids laughed,
out to the hall way they all marched
in line.
Giggling and choking ,
they all did the time.
They knew he wasn't angry
his face held a smile.
His eyes shone very brightly.
But only for a while.

I wonder what our table talk
would have been..
Maybe it would have flown ,
like a beautiful stream.

© Naomi

The Poet and the Human World

2008-04-30T03:41:00.000-07:00

The poet may of the tragic stock be
Never will he of the greedy stock be
He may out of choice a god worship
Never will he cheer the deeds of a warship
Songs calling the downfall of a tyrant he does tune
But dirges to bury the tyrannised his entrails at noon
Spew
For all, not a few!
The flaw of trusting his foible is
The breach of trust from his love, his tragedy is.
A poet is a poet
Human and poet
And a child though
He of mud makes dough,
In pain has one love
In joy has one love
In writing shares either pain or joy
Or both; for men with these toy
Espousing the things of this world
Far removed from his world.

TO MUSIC

2008-04-20T15:21:00.000-07:00

Music has sung my life
From the wild dances
With my laughing sister
To the many melodies
I dream over with my wife.

With gentle or violent hands
They have lifted us both
To leave us dreaming
Caught in the wraiths
Of distant unknown lands.

And there our love has wandered
From string to pipe and drum,
From Vivaldi's vigour and force
To the magnificent rigour of Beethoven
Where the great melodies come.

And so great and noble Art,
You have kept our love alive,
Captured in your deep heart's soul
Climbing the heights and plumbing the depths
Always together, never to part.

©Peter H.W.Brooker.

Plume in a Jar

2008-04-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

Early in the morning, driving past
Thinking not I’d see a die cast
With full blown sun on the horizon
Driving thoughts of layers of ozone
I three balloons saw in the air
And a winged flock towards them their way did stir
Divinely soaring
And imperially laughing
And I did gasp: gee!
Who? Me? Let’s see!
Would someone of the holy, holy
Trinity
Tell them
Or tell them
Of the arms checking
And balancing
Each of the three trumps in our deck
Hanging on each others neck!
Freely, the balloons, in the air floated
And freely in the air, at pariahs the birds gloated
Catching a view of them at dead ends scavenging
For earthly salvation scavenging
While a king atop a throne
With a load from afar happily groomed and grown;
Dropping one of their feathers in a jar,
The birds ordered a song for the bar
Behind which king and groomer
Will stand to share the shroud of Mr Deceiver
The which the poet in me hurriedly picked
Before he could on the butt be kicked.

INTERVENTION A sonnet

2008-04-12T07:26:00.000-07:00

How patiently my chessmen wait
In serried ranks upon their board!
''Front rank steady! Rear rank steady!''
And steadfast there they all will stand
Until at last some human hand
Intervenes,launching some heady
Attack so they can show their hoard
of subtle moves through check to mate.

And so it was with rock and air and troubled sea
Waiting and wasting through what seemed eternity
Heading always towards a duller entropy.
No divine hand was then,no Plan to win or fail,
Until at last life came,that little life so frail
That from their waste made elephant and whale.

© Peter H.W.Brooker. 2006

Wrath to the world.

2008-04-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

Shivering out in the storm, up in the sky
a cover of dark angry clouds my attention caught,
with their beauty touching me, as they moved across,
the sun’s face, bringing darkness and chill.

As if spewed from the mouth of a hateful ogre, aiming
his wrath at the world, a wind so fierce and unfeeling
to all in its path, moved closer, thus pounding like angry waves
as they crashed on the rocks of a distant shore
Chilling my soul with its hateful claw.
My jacket I zipped up to my chin
to warm my body within .

Palms bend as if bowing to a master, thin fronds like
unprotected maidens hair was blown about.
Jacaranda pods, shattered limbs, crushed leaves,
blooms that yesterday were admired by many.
My thoughts move to other times & to people in far off lands,
Shattered limbs, ruined lives, bodies here and there, left
by cruel soldiers, and masters that did not care,
These were the blooms many admired yesterday.

© Joy Naomi Brooker 2008

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In Response to Trevor : Disposable World

2008-03-24T08:40:00.001-07:00

Grumpy old man stage
I young'ns more harshly judge
than I would have wanted
at that age.
But the values
of insidious older manipulators
blithely wrecking cultures
laying waste the world
do really frighten me.
Someone needs to tell them
- no, they know -
the planet is a not-for-profit concern
non-returnable, no exchange.

© Phil Mahnken 21 March 2008

Alas, no more!

2008-03-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

Like a picture, the pink sunset reflections looked
in the waters of the stream
That painfully its way crawled under trees
Through tufts of grass
Under willows, through the water dragging their limbs
like the hands of a smiling maiden
at seeing her lover row to their destination.
Alas no more glow of this beautiful scene
as the water trickled into the mud
to stop its flow.
The sweet breeze kissed goodbye, the last
of the stream,
The gentle ripples wavered,
Then were no more.

© Joy Naomi Brooker

The Dance of Uncertainty

2008-03-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

What was that sound, should we take care,
Heads swiftly turning, eyes darting to and fro,
as if seeking out the enemy;
Feet stomping, rising and falling?
Bodies moving from side to side,
with movements seeming to embrace uncertainty.
Shoulders twitching, hands moving jerkily,
in an unusual, but acceptable movement of the dance.
The dancers mimic an animal as they move slowly
forward with the call of the music.

Massive clouds sit importantly ,
in the vast never ending sky,
like thoughts in the mind of a great leader.
The dancers stretch upwards taking in the beauty
of the clouds and their company.
Feel the vibrations of the Didgeridoo calling the music
to its self, listen to the music, reaching deeply into your soul
feel the earth, feel the colour, the water ,the wind ,
The Excitement Of The Dance Of Uncertainty.

© Joy Naomi Brooker 2008

Corners of my mind

2008-03-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Black thoughts in my mind

Self worthlessness, self pity.

Lack of confidence

Unloved, unhappy.

People don't like who I am.

Who am I?

They seem to have already decided,

How can they?

I am within me,

Engulfed with these thoughts,

that can't be switched off.

I am the only one that thinks in my mind.

How can they decide who, and what I am.

Black thoughts moving through ,

the dark corners of my mind.

As if some unseen hand has suddenly,

switched them on,

like that of a light needed,

to brighten a room.

These thoughts unwanted, thoughts

of hateful feelings,

looking through my box of tricks,

to see what they can find.

The weakest spots they are looking for,

in the corners of my mind.

They hide in the darkness ,and then step out

to trip me up.

Left uncovered, bared to the weakest thoughts,

that hide in the darkness,

in the corners of my mind.

Suddenly I was aware of music

moving over my being,

like that of a soothing hand.

Music is really nourishment ,

for my soul.

But what of those black thoughts

in the darkness ,

in the corners of my mind.

An Ode to Plastic

2008-03-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

Bales of hay are a case in point
It was wire in grandad's day
piles of it in his fill-in dump
Then binder twine for decades
And now this raffia junk

Plastic toothbrushes, plastic chairs
I take my coffee in plastic cups
Scoop my yoghurt with plastic spoons
Plastic hose fittings, plastic rakes
Plastic cord to cut weeds and grass
Plastic nappies on baby's arse

My dad played with mechano sets
My kids pile up plastic leggo
The family fights over the plastic remote
for the plastic telly with its plastic people

Plastic radios and earphones on our heads
Plastic devices, plastic partners
to come with us to our beds
Or if flesh and blood,
probably plastically enhanced

The bread comes in plastic, string bags are gone
Gladwrapped lunches, shrink wrapped chops
Tupperware tubs and laminex benchtops
Sponges on a squeegie, no more mops
No more fine old fountain pens
Now it's plastic biros
Vinyl records, vinyl shirts

Plastic gumboots, plastic raincoats
And plastic money of course
Will they put our ashes in a plastic urn
or will our weeping kin
put us out one Wednesday night
in a plastic wheelie bin?

Of Stagnation and Progress

2008-03-07T03:25:00.000-08:00

The essence of any true poet is not in the flesh
Though in his flesh are rhythm and rhyme fresh
Take him for a game, hunt him,
Shoot, skin and roast him
His star will shoot
To guide all those on foot
Projecting
The everlasting
Poets’ substance, the light
Poets would for all shine bright
Even in their bleak and somber moments
They delight at feast seeing all with refreshments

The knave of this happy end
Darkness would the poet bend
And would people see not where they step their foot
For the substance in darkness is all about food
The poet and his light on its way
Kills and stows its happiness far away

In the melody rhyming
And with rhythm overpowering.
Of progress born is the light
And of stagnation ignited is the fight
With darkness wishing the poet’s death
And the poet in its depth

Exposing the upheavals on the path
To progress and calling unto himself the wrath
Of angry darkness desiring the poet dead on the spot
For the world to see how he’s got his lesson hot;
Not knowing the poet fears not the burn of fire
Nor the stab of a dagger and much less shocks from electric wire
With all of this the poet is still and still wears his smile
And even knowing he is to live only a short, short while.

Still in adversity facing him
And singing when facing those looking up to him
In the fight
To get rid of the blight
Tying people on the spot
When they need to trot.

07/03/08

My Precious...

2008-03-07T03:20:00.000-08:00

She sets my heart a-tripping
She takes away my breath
I think that I shall die for her
My precious … cigarette.

By Phillip Mahnken,
April 2007

Gloating Time for the True Believers

2008-03-07T03:10:00.000-08:00

Coalition defeated
Howard unseated
Newman the best they can do.
If I were a Lib
I'd put on a bib
And have an elitist spew.

By Phillip Mahnken,
November 2007

Our Case

2008-03-01T15:14:00.000-08:00

Kill our earthly stars.
What will you do to the heavenly ones?
To protect yourself, grease the soldiers’ beard.
What shall you do when at your door death knocks?
Bring us the Opposition in a coffin.
But will you let us freely mourn?
You kill our poets.
Do you believe we will bury their writings?
Bury yourself amidst a zillion soldiers.
Haven’t you learned from Chinese History?
Like you, in China one did this.
Did he not rot underground?
You sum your world with Law and Order.
Why let lawlessness and disorderliness reign?
You are god to those who buy your favours.
Who or what are you to those you strip of basic rights?
Every night, you go to sleep on a king size bed.
Why not make your heart the size of your bed?
You ruin the nation to live in a mansion.
What space in it or our minds do you occupy?
You’ve dominated the nation tyrannically.
Shall you ever be the tyrant that kills death?
We thought to rule was to serve.
Why must a tyrant like you be served?
Now, to yourself, you’ve gathered the nation’s wealth?
Won’t you live us the right to determine the future of our misery?
You push your tyranny, your greed and grip on power to the last.
Won’t you still be proven wrong from beginning and end?
You may never stand in front of any court to plead guilty.
But which other criminal supersedes you?
You may never see this as a case.
But, here, are we not free to rest our case?

01/03/08

Past, Present and Future

2008-02-26T13:46:00.000-08:00

In the distant past those children
Rose to see the Sun shine then
They were far, far away
In the tropics, far away
Where in abundance the Sun would shine
Wherein brought the book, a herd of swine
Weighting a contention
The like of the greatest temptation
And ignoring the sun burn
Whose abundance bodies tan turn
Yet, upholding the whole place dark
And would rush their darkness to this lustrous park!

Dark and dark it wasn’t brethren!
Bright at night it was then
When the Sun gave way to the moon
The alternating sun and moon waited not for noon
And our paths did brighten
And our minds did enlighten
Spot on nature we were whole
Solid society without a loophole
And in their book, they packed their light
And by the time it got to us they’d darken it as night
And what we’d know for many a generation
Was no more than degeneration.

Kings and king makers alike
Fully furnished with spike
Ready for our pens
And would like fowls we keep to our pens
Upset by the state of things
All fancy the downfall of these kings
For the like of a kingdom by the Sun and moon lit
And not like the present with greedy elite
Dragging this beauty that once was
Into a state far, far worse
Not until then, drums shall resound
To feed elites’ ears with hurt and pain that abound
Till on their feet they quake
And quest why their devil did them forsake.

Brightness we need here on earth, here and now
With no doubt as to when, where and how?
Not only universal but free are these rights
And should come without tithes;
No, not tithes, bribes
In line with kings vibes.

24-25/02/08

The lion and the lamb

2008-02-26T13:44:00.000-08:00

Sheep have every reason to bleat
Spotting wolves around their domain beat
Their feet at the foot of their fence
And how they wish a lion came to their defence!
But the problem seen for the sheep
Is that their forte would never be sleep
In the jungle
With the coarse jingle
From lions’ roar echoing some remote past
Yet, it rives in our world and fast
With lions thinking their manes
The sun of the jungle and the plains
Having finished the rams and the ewes
They blow away their fuse
Now, with just one little lamb
In the whole plain left, the lions with drool flood the dam
Loosing sight of the journey no tongue
Would tell and oblivious of the orphan’s recital of a song
For this to come transport him to the land of glory;
His dream place to join ancestors in the rank of history
And happy too for the lion would tell of the last lamb
And the lion without prey would raise an alarm
And this won’t be heard in the jungle
Not even when it be the loudest jingle.

25/02/08

Mare Providers

2008-02-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

Fascination and awe grace repugnance for a lion
Be him in or out of his dominion
His characteristic strength to kill,
And he dexterously does with a thrill
Sending home a chill down the spine of the sleeper
Frozen by thoughts of terror provider proper
Found in lion kings like Suharto,
Polpot, Paul Biya, Momo, Nguesso, Bongo, Sese-seko…
The one and only thing none will stand to look,
A thing to make a nation puke
For the king is a lion in rage
Wanting in and mimicking lions’ courage
Desolately in the marshes
Where he for the preys searches.

26/02/08

Scavengers

2008-02-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

You, you, you, and you see them as filthy filth
No doubt they live off the filth
But these scavengers need be treated with love
Not because they’re stronger than the dove.

You, you, you, and you may not see the reason
Yet, in this nation lions hang on trees for “treason”.

And Vultures flap their wings and send through the air
Fragrances and freshness all would wear and bear;
And when from their thrones lions with joy
Accomplish their favorite ploy
Albeit sick and unfit to rule
In the game they fix the rule;
Slitting the throat of a prey
And it is then that vultures prey
Cleaning the gory scenes of our pavement,
Driving the quest for anything more useful to environment;
Some big fat cat do too no doubt
With Blake’s, my family totem, making me proud
But not in seeing them strife on the living,
Not even when for them this rhymes with surviving.

Change

2008-02-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

Poets love, adore and cherish change
The junky in the streets would he had some change
So is it for the punk
As well as with the drunk
These poor souls would never see its sunrise
And the poet calling for one pays the price
For any such call
Standing him above the head tall;
Yet, change the throne would die for
Change the holy ground would it had four
If poets and people in the streets
See it far from anything coins and sheets
The throne and the mitre would embrace it in their pocket
To wield might and shoot like a rocket.
Toeing political lines one dreamer dreamt of this
And in the streets, all identified as his
For with him, might would visit them thus
And help sweep away obsolescence and its boss
When from the enterprise hurtled in a chide
And with him people were dubbed mad Xerox bona fide.
Given the folks do the desire nurse and see the difference
No care should be ministered the word game reference
And would the first estate put reason to motion
And stop hugging status quo to brandish and wield emotion
And with our hearts the People would relish the drink of change
Were it to come from the streets, the valleys or the mountain range
Real change the dream
And all would it flows like a stream
Or drop down like some fruits
Off trees with melodious sounds streaming from conduits
Driving fruit flies insane
To leave the place free of pain.

23/02/08

Jungle Lions

2008-02-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

With leaden mane they laze
In their craze
In the Sahara and its South. In numbers here and there
Heading prides, the unselected few in the fields where
The cob lions adore using as their playground,
And looking up to the elders to turn things around
Heads of prides pride themselves kings of the jungle
And all would a melody from their roar jingle
But they wish all waited a while
As they for all, would time kill and whirl.
By them, they are the strongmen of their territory
And for many cobs they are the object of genuine pity
For they define their territory by such delusional names
Reflecting one of their favorite games:
Libreville or Freetown translating Prisonville or Prisontown
For there they keep all subjects down
And subjects with their known tragic flaw
Obeying and abiding by the law
And forgetting where the law is lawless
Its heads and its forces enjoy obeisance less
To their pleasure or displeasure
And the People should take the measure
To assure the jingo does not cloud their minds
For it only serves as blinds
Screening the sun from providing vitamins
And stealing taste from the desired sacraments.
The lions lazing behind the pennon blast
Their music and would on to power cling to the last
And by such prefixes affix their names
As they with zeal burn like flames
Burning and burning the joys of all
Until the nations’ complete fall
As they their ground stand
And subjects would they could understand
The unreason driving the head lions mad
Declaring their Excellencies; sad, indeed sad!

22/02/08

Close to the Heart

2008-02-19T04:52:00.000-08:00

Do the right thing and always be polite
Mum sang and stuck right and polite to my heart tight
In my cradle. I grew up to our fathers’ cradle see
And the heads would these words live across the sea.

O, sweet cradle, a quarter century in your sight
For that quarter century I watched the fight
In which two divine rights knaves would slay
Peace and freedom warriors just to stay.

Another near quarter century out of your sight
My ears drank full tales of the fight
And you, in mind and sight, I did bear all the time
And you even paid me visits by day and at bedtime;

And like the tales told to us by parents at night;
Tales of giants, Cyclopes, amputees & monsters of dreadful height,
The tales you bring of the knaves tell of gore
Sealing mouths of words short, filling the heart with sore.

The stab mirrors the plight
’N invite to make it light
Yet, all attempts lasted a while
And the effort and time were worthwhile.

All this while the knaves proclaimed their might
Building for all, four sturdy walls of fright
Within which the masses heaped in a pile
Squirm and scream to rend them senile.

The knaves in their dream made a giant stride
Until they caught the masses having a joy ride
Stalling all their cheap quest for fame,
Drumming them the music of shame

And now we no longer sit and bide
Waiting for the messiah to alight
But have to dance to every tune but blues
And not eschew but savour all with no spews

This has to be done from morning till night
And has to be done till the wrong is right
Flat must be made all the hills that on our way
Stood, and the muddle of the gore swept away.

The world might have viewed our cause as a trite
Yet, the undoing at the end, our source of pride
And we now borne a smile
That we carry in grand style.

Enlightened, the nation joined without fright
And aboard a ship we did freight
The blood spilling knaves and lackeys to other lands
Rekindling joys in the nation’s heart and stilling the old bands.

12/02/08

African Politics

2008-02-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

When yesteryears there was rain,
And it rained hard out raining the drain,
Turning our villages into a disaster zone
Our fathers of nations in the rains found a bone
A bone of contention
To kill anything Opposition….

This year when it rained and blessed the crop
Our fathers of nations wrought by nature so corrupt
Turned this into a miraculous work of theirs
Against the resistance with their flood generating fears!

Again, today the sun shone
And the opposition was not shown
With that accusing finger
And guess what? It made the villagers’ day better!
And who else could have brought such a smile
That across the nation stretches for many a mile?

Our fathers of the nations
Not the dreadful oppositions…!

This is our clean politics
And if you doubt,
With a pout
We embrace praises, not critics’ !

Letter to our deaf father of the nation: “Mr. Dict….”

2008-01-20T18:52:00.000-08:00

Let the olive leaves rain!
Let everyone take
His own eyes and feast on you snake
Brook and make
Way for the rain,

Change

Master of mischief and ingratitude!

O, Mr. D…!
You think your life thorny,
For we dare think,
Speak,
Write and act… songs
To right your wrongs!

O, Mr. D… every hour
With adoration we greet your
Gallows popping up in the manner
Of mushrooms
At every street corner
With zeal hungering for us like grooms

Their brides,

And we ask for no doom
But our rights,
Our birth rights!

And quest if you’re a mushroom
Eating champion
To scheme such reprobation
As never did any power trickster
Even to his own hamster!

You erect in our country
Such gallows as the tallest tree
Would never match
And on which our rights are bashed

Diurnal and nocturnal!

We having just one never to end a journal!

Seeing you harpoon all those rights,
Those of our republic,
Those of your republic,
Those even defined by others
As being human;
And even our birth right
To live,
Love,
Think,
Speak,
write,
Act
And
Die
Freely
Just as you live
And
Will die live
(And Miserably
Too!)
Thank and thank your god
We have heads and will not
Help, help you
Abridge your affliction
Pushing us into the heights of tribulation….!

Nudging you to the head
We thought you had a head
We thought you knew what rights
Were ours
And which were yours…!
Foreseeing no plights,
We thought the bright gaze
On your face
[A new page!]
Replicated some goodness
In you concealed!
We now know your head as empty
As the bellies of our fellow human beings
‘Littering’ your streets
& wanting in food and water;
We know it emptier
Than the calabash of that
Desert Wanderer whose thirst
Harried him to you
And you ushered him
To the garrotte chamber!
Breaching the Contract!

Knowing that shimmering seal’s
Face, the rot in you conceals
We would…
Not in the woods…
Hoot you down!

Step down, renege the crown
To hap your way under
As we
With our thorny
Life of misery …

Do!

Do, bury your mulishness!