A Place I Called Home

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

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

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

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.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

© Joy Naomi Brooker 2007

An Ode to Plastic

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?

© Phillip Mahnken 2000

Of Stagnation and Progress

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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….”

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!