Times and Seasons: The Anthology
Caleb Adoh
Times and Seasons: The Anthology
By Caleb Adoh
This free ebook may be copied , distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration , and the reader is not charged to access it. More Importantly, poets’ names must be acknowledged wherever their poems are published.
Caleb Adoh ©
Copyright 2015
All photos used in the creation of this ebook are public domain photos
The following Poets are feature d in this Anthology:
Caleb Adoh Charred Memories
Wordsworth
Abiku
My Christmas
Temi Wright Angels road Keepers
The State of Our State
Olatunji Sam To My First Beard
Gbemisola
Momma, Here I come!
Ibe Alvina Life Seasons
Ebonne Uche Together Apart
To Our Heroes Past
Ajayi Simon Paradox
Toothbrush
Oguntade Dami He Wields the Steel
Dedication
This Anthology is dedicated to the great guys I went to school with from 2009-2013 (University of Lagos). It was really great knowing you all. You guys brought the artistic part of me from where I hid it.
I can’t wait to see you guys do really great stuff: Temi Wright, Ebonne Uche, Alvina Ibe, Oguntade Damilola, Angel Simon and Samuel Olatunji
Authors Note
Poetry is life. I spent four to five years of my university life studying poetry. A lot of people may think studying poetry at a university isn’t as grand or in a more 21st century context—“cool” as most people think.
I realised that lots of the things in life are tied around poetry, or in a much larger sense—literature. You get to travel into people’s minds, world and climes from your face dug deep into that book in your room.
What other way can you get to carve the future like a sculptor without applying imagination through art?
It has successfully helped me to have a great career in Digital Marketing and Advertising.
Literature is life!
Caleb Adoh
2348059820437
Caleb Adoh
To Oj: Charred Memories
I watched in total dismay
As the fire burned out
Left with the charred remains of precious memories
Blown away by the wind
The morning rainbow was the cord that bound us
A spiritual bridge from both hearts
Time is a lumberman wielding an axe
Shakespeare could not have described Him properly
Like Ozymandias, “here lies a stump where a tree was”
A tree where we sat holding arms overlooking the sun in the horizon
It’s now a stump left out to dry in the sun.
Dry stalks with grey and black
The only colours that remind us of what use to be lush green
Look! Cinders.
A hope to rekindle the fire that once burned like Moses’
I will rather blow into existence that tiny spark;
That tiny burning cinder called Hope
Even if the only thing I have in return is bloodshot eyes and
Lungs clogged with smoke
I have a clean state,
Can we please write again?
Caleb Adoh
Wordsworth
Let your words:
Pull the silver strings
Pull the harpsichord
Make music like the orchestra of the heavenlies
Blow across the land like pixie dust
Make wishes come through
Yours and those you speak of
Add colour to the desert
Of broken hearts
Be more that sand castles
That are washed away by the waves
Be seasoned with:
Lavish praise and approbation
Be BandAid. Mend. Unite
If your lips would keep from slips
Five things observe with care
To whom you speak of, of whom you speak,
And how. And where
A man is made mighty,
Or little by the words of his lips
Caleb Adoh
Abiku
Coming and going these several seasons
Bringing to our door posts gifts wrapped in shrouds
Draped in Angelic robes, but with an intent darker than Hades’
Holding in his baby hands the Devil’s sickle
He has come again!
To bleed Mother’s oil dry.
Like water seeping through crevices
News of Mother’s birth
Fills the Town Square with sunken faces
Mother weeps!
Deafening cries of pain and regret fill the quarters
Are the gods not really to blame?
The mid-wives revel.
Unfettered by the tumult and disarray:
Fanning the fire of confusion from the
Land of the cold and pale-skinned people.
Pantomimed faces showing phony attention
They created the weapons—CROSS –CARPETING, MANIFSTO;
DEMOCRACY; INDUSTRALIZATION
With which Abiku deals deadly blows
Ever wondered why our palm nuts fall at the foot of the tree?
While Abiku flies across seven seas to our Midwives land
To refine our oil , bringing back our oil of sadness
Look ! here He comes,
The Abiku, on a horse, shading the sun with an umbrella
Painted white, red and green,
With a broom in his left hand.
Here they come with their empty promises!
Caleb Adoh
My Christmas
Waking up to the blissful smell of fried flesh
Intestinal Performances:
Orchestral pieces far more appealing than the sounds
Of Mozart and Beethoven
Mother grants a piece;
A peace of offering
An appeasement for the whole year
Face smeared with oil
Pocket stuffed with pyrotechnics.
Up to a mischief?
Never scared—it’s a spanking-free day
Mother takes on a “Cane fast”
Children dressed in uniforms visiting the neighbours
The day ends up being a great one—belly full!
Temi Wright
Angels Road Keepers
I once read a poem by an Angel—
‘The Road Keepers’—and it gave me an ailment
Who kept the road?
From Soyinka’s Night Children.
Spirits from another world after despondency.
Well, Spirits the keepers must be
For inhuman they are in-deed!
Creepy things in black or armoured suits
Gesticulating to stop the late night pull
With flickering lights, and the feared rifle
The jib of death and source of their strength.
‘GIVE NOT THE DOUGH AND EXPERIENCE A BLOW’
That’s their motto and you don’t want a show
Men
folk of twain policies:
‘The open eye to the tight-fisted palm
And the tight-fisted eye to the open palm’
The road keepers:
The draw to themselves contempt
And of dignity, they care not a tenth
The road keepers:
A people of valour, when it meant the conductor
A race of obtuse injudiciousness
A horde barely more chivalric than the swine.
The Road Keepers
Keepers of the road
To purloin and exploit all of its gold
Angel’s Road Keepers
The converse of hard labour
Venality put in a very nice way!
Temi Wright
The State of Our State
My fingers are screaming for help
Disenchanted rioters in a world that’s dishevelled
Beauty speaks through the tantrum of words
But voice cannot voice the indignation I bear
A return to vociferous conviction
As I look ahead to a platter of confusion
I hear and perceive silence at its din
My thoughts stumble over its very dissolution
See! The never ending encroachment
Civility resides in a place of embalmment
Sleaze is no longer a thing as fart
But a lot has suffered encouragement
Over the land is the spread of disease
And the vultures shrill for more deceased
Somas can no longer writhe with insomnia
Yet, the voyage through teething troubles persists
Panacea is the irony of their injurious misdeeds
But the-people give in for fear of beliefs
Though they clamour, the bandwagon’s the silhouette gang
Disfranchising the-people, retracting from all that is their will
Hugger-mugger and near anarchy is imminent
The continued lie and disarray all lead to mishap
The present is gloomy and everyday’s future beclouded
The-people are blasé and may well turn tales
For a night by the moonlight raconteur
Olatunji Samuel
To My first Beard
Gradually they appeared.
Tiny lustre black diamonds on my chin,
A one plus ultra of God’s divine beauty on MAN,
They appeared like the black silken hair of a beautiful maiden,
And they won my hearts medal
They’re like the naïve hair on the head of a newly-born
So beautiful that the mirror became my eyes,
I apellated them., my ‘black beauties’
An adornment of facial handsomeness,
A hallmark of admiration noticed and envied by many.
They made young ladies wonder in lust maybe in love,
My aesthetic black beauties. So adoring ; so alluring ,
Stunningly curled up like glossy black thread,
A signal of growth , maturity and responsibility,
Adulation to the eternal potter for the job well done
Samuel Olatunji
Gbemisola
Gbemisola, gorgeous and gay like a happy peacock;
Beauteous face, a bard’s delight;
Ebullient with effulgent eues;
Magazines’ model of manifesting magnificence;
Immaculate daughter of the morning sun,
Simple, svelte queen of the merry moon;
Outstanding ornament of divine beauty;
Limelight of living love
Adoring of the Amazing Potter
Olatunji Samuel
Momma, Here I Come
Momma! Momma! Momma! Here I come!
With an angel for a wife as you asked for,
A rare gem of sauced uniqueness,
A well-refined diamond I bring back home
Momma, take a look at her. Behold this divine beauty
Her eyes blind the brightness of the stars,
Her sweet voice silence the great Nightingale,
I bring to you a love that will last for eternity.
Welcome her with a motherly embrace,
The jewel that makes me a lion.
Welcome the mother of my unknown progeny,
I bring her, a belle, am ornament of grace.
Teach her womanly, enlarge her knowledge,
Anoint her head with homely charity,
Prepare her for wifehood and motherhood
My love for her will never-cease. This I pledge.
Ibe Alvina
Life Seasons
Once upon a time
At the onset of age
When time was
A green emblem
When men walked
On all fours
Time did not differ
Life meant little.
Innocence was man’s very essence.
Recklessness, his watchword.
Nudity was a beauty.
A much coveted price.
Ignorance, an achievement.
Once upon a time, the world was full of roses.
Once upon a time
When man was no more,
When man was stained
With the throes of reality,
When time was never enough
When man had
Two pillars to hold him.
Life was contrary
And knowledge golden.
Once upon a time,
The world was full of thorns.
Once upon a time,
When my ancient name
Had only three letters,
Pronounced L-E-G.
When I had tasted
The sweetest honey.
And a pint of the bitterest bitter
When I had on
A cap of grey
When my thirty –two
Strongest friends
Were fast letting go
When my two lamps
Grew dim
Caution was my watchword
Wisdom, my very essence
My grey cap
My honour
My wrinkled clothes
Much respected
A cloud-burst
Could not move me
Nor could the world
Cast a cloud over me
Life was two-faced
Life wWhat we made of it
Once upon a time the world was full
Of both Roses and thorns
Ebonne Uchechukwu
Together Apart
In the large green tree
Of fresh lusty flowery shoots
And leaves nurtured from spread branches
When healthy fruits grow naturally each season
And defensive
Trunks keep safe roots and tops
To grow food and timber
There be need for selfless service
Though many troubled branches apart
And choky tendrils fizzle around
Hot wind causing significant shakes
Changing colours, shedding leaves on thirsty soil
One man wonders how this beautiful tormented tree
Still exists together apart.
Splitting wilt cause death
But peace and work will bring about growth
Ebonne Uchechukwu
The Labour of Heroes Past
Rising from the ashes of the dead
The picture of villainy and sacrifice
The raising of each sword
The placing of each shield
To what end do they come?
Arise!
Wake up this last time!
Undo what you have done
The banner of your children is with LITTLE stain
Put yourselves aside; defend its fading colours
Ajayi Simon Angel
Paradox
Every line has a meaning; every meaning has a line…
We think we h
ave the worst story;
We heard other’s, we exclaimed, ‘Glory’
It’s cold now, when will it be hot?
Now it’s hot, Oh Cold! Be our lot
When it rains, we crave sun;
Now it scorches, we say ‘Rain is fun’
We dream, but are afraid of its reality
We see reality but fantasize on fantasy
We despise love—it’s cheap but deep;
We idolize hatred—it robs us of sleep
