Of a fallen martyr.
WAR CRY
by Vincent Van Ross
Weapons can’t buy peace
But, we buy weapons
All the same
The logic
Is self-defeating
Yet, we buy this logic
Weapons manifest war cries
No weapons—No war
It’s as simple as that
Common man
Does not want war
He wants to live in peace
But, our leaders are war-mongers
Because, there is a goldmine
Waiting to be tapped in weapons
Weapons and military hardware
Make up the biggest chunk
In international trade
If the money spent on defence
Is spent on development
Every country would be prosperous
We cry for peace
They make war
God knows—Why?
THE ELDERS OF THIS LAND
by Oyin Oludipe
(After Wole Soyinka’s The Children of this Land)
The elders of this land are bowed
Their gazes sit on mines in place of hills,
Earth to breed the marsh from dust
Sensuous froth trailed by foul tongues
Their bristly groves are riddles for faith
The elders of this land are swift,
But only deviously so.
They clap gourds on conquest
But – know – the barrel it was that sealed
Rock seams their offspring saw to sprout.
Once, it was oath for their harvest
But their wagging skulls are devout
To a black storm sky, to a pull of droughts
The elders of this land raise the proudest walls
On mourner lands, dissect hearts to bear
Eye-woe waters. Their songs are scab
For bile whose virulence has shot
Through tart lips to the passing of purity.
But sweet memories hang dead. Their ghosts
Are dormant kernels and grounded lives
These are the treasures of the misplaced,
The fresh and brisk severed. Greybeard dethrones
Agile brood. The elders of this land
Are gourmets in coal seas, all turncoats
And nude masks – the crust of their returning.
Their shadows are ghoul for the lost child,
Cold horizon for a distant grief, and hope.
A worn breed will crown our race –
Where the morrow is lost, guest
To echoes from far crowded shores, parader
In lone universe fabricated by hungry minds,
Where the morrow is hidden courage,
Ancient leap, vied by fears
Of chronic present
But the elders of this land round the gulf
As undertakers.
The spires of their compassion
Rain flames on hearths once dance grooves,
And limbs of birth. The elders of this land
Are carved as gods, their antimonies bash
All cautions of the past. A horde
Surges through their vision, but douses the air
With one bold warrant:
These are heirs to the rust!
CALL ME NOT A FATHER
by Mipo Isaac
#BringBackOurGirls
And if---
If only voices could be printed
On the surface of papers,
The shock of reading
Will probably kill her
Before the cruel hatchet of those ruthless beings!
Where is the voice to even write?
Words muddled in tears,
And punctuated with heart renting guilt?
Of a MAN that bows;
Shivering legs and shimmery eyes,
Staring at the stars at night,
The sun at day!
The mothers wail!
The children cry!
Our neighbours curse!
And see, the walls are crumbling fast,
Yet, culture says I cannot weep-
Not a drop of tear,
From overgrown lashes!
Oh culture, what will I answer at Judgement?
That I watched the way to Sambisa
And could not run the path
With a cutlass in hand?
That I ate the flesh of herbs,
When my daughter munches
The morsel of desolation?
I am not a MAN,
I had loss my potency!
I am guilty before man,
Condemned before God,
For I couldn't stand to face death -
A torch in hand, a sword abreast,
Beat the leaves, path the way
Till I feel that familiar aura of my Beloved!
What will I answer at Judgement?
That I slept and rocked beneath a shawl
When my child's teeth clatters;
Molar beating canine,
Till the twenty eight little tiles
Becomes weaker than my father's!
Shame!
I had eaten a bowl of pottage,
I had sold my responsibility
To virile men on uniform;
I beg my mate, my equal
To help me search,
Pleading and begging
"Please search out my child!"
Now I know,
I am closer to my grave than ever...
I leave this message - distorted
Read my sins, find in your heart to forgive!
Today I bow to the One that scared me,
For I'm ashamed to meet your eyes,
I am not worthy to cuddle your temple!
And If...
The foliages of Sambisa
Sw-all-ow
Swallow you
You... up
We'll meet above,
A failed father
And a righteous daughter!
CHIBOK DEBRIS
by Károly Sándor Pallai
#BringBackOurGirls
Gnashing sunset coating the skies with
Purple fear. A palpable dread enwinds
The baobab and dogonyaro trees along the roads.
Forgotten bodies of children selling
Sachets of water, sunburned promises.
Steps of vigilantes rhyming with the metallic
Thumps of clenched machine guns and machetes.
Hundreds of girls taken by decubital inexorability.
Words are strained sinews on the triggers.
Jasmin-demonic words of Maitatsine,
The evening star is blurred by the crumbling
Of blackening lungs, by the wee sighs of
Putrefying exasperation: a life-documentary of tragedies.
Survival shivers in the terrified semen of child soldiers.
A moribund congregation of languid faith.
Pestilent headlights, snapshots of a landscape betrayed
Long ago by tattered, necroptic guardian angels.
Faces marked by hollow cuts: pulsation of sorrow,
Violent disruption. A carcinomatous, evil moon
Laughs as he falls through the heavenly ladders
Bruising his visage in his effort to feel for the brutally
Stolen futures. Despondency is a shrilling, parched,
Scutellate prostitute selling ecstasy and vapidity
To a lithified nation submerged in the gaze of
Renunciation. Stretchers, cerebral and mental
Thromboses, an unmerciful, tuberculoid salvation.
Understanding is replaced by shibboleths,
And besotting watchwords of evil stupidity.
Ferruginous bed frames gritting like squinting rendezvous
With sinister clouds. Burned-out classrooms: pusillanimous
Remnants of horror, recalling moments of b
arbarity skiving,
Twinging, throbbing, ululating, splashing and gushing like
Razors in our rectum. Who disciplines the ulcerous present?
by Abdulhafeez Taiye Oyewole
The mirror of life lacks glow.
Does it heal in praise?
Or in curse?
The shinning crown house hassles;
Seems it lights have slept
On hinged thoughts.
Nation can’t be best built in a day.
Rome of world takes years
To breed peace.
For amity:
Accord- a must earn,
People’s love and trust,
People’s hearts and might.
…Continually and togetherness must thrive.
The reflection of life must glow.
It will by day grow-
Bit by bit.
In mirror of life is love,
Attainable in tranquillity,
Of ambiance and souls,
Of the blue and the earth.
So soon happy living means sooner peace,
And sooner peace means soonest love.
Clear of thoughts, tolerance, endurance and perseverance…
Are swords to peaceful revolution cum cohabitation.
REFLECTION
by Shannon Marie Antoinette Samuda
You stare violently,
But your eyes portray serenity.
You reach out to touch,
But you don't feel
You don't feel.
You're enclosed in a world of appearances,
Beauty, brains and vanities
You once again reach out to touch,
But you don't feel
You don't feel.
You hear the voices around you speaking,
And you start to wonder what's happening.
You turn away but you don't see.
You can't see.
My back is now turned,
So you no longer stare.
You no longer wish to feel.
You just wish you and I traded places,
So that you could be real.
Funny thing about your wishes,
I wish them too.
I'd rather be a reflection,
Just like you.
HOW?
By ADELAJA RIDWAN OLAYIWOLA
If stones were gold and everywhere
And sold for free all here and there
How rich our men would be?
If smiles on face are nothing rare
And every man for a must, must cheer
How happy the heart would be?
If love is placed so high and dear
And man to man becomes a pair
How peaceful our land would be?
If honesty becomes the air
And every-nose has its own share
How healed our world would be?
If wisdom is all human’s care
And for it search, we all would dare
How wise everyone would be?
If righteousness is the ship we fare
And truth is that with which we steer
How fulfilled our life would be?
WISHES
by Civa Bhusal
There are few of the things in the world
That we sometimes wish
Were all ours
The stars, the moon, the river and
The tides
The roses, the evenings and
The valentines
Inside a huddled hut
There is nothing
But still-
There is peace
There is sleep
There is everything
A man inside a huddled hut
Doesn’t dream of the stars, the moon, the River and
Doesn’t even dream of the roses, the evenings and
The valentines
A dream
Is a killer truth
So is the wish
There are few of the things in the world
That we sometimes wish
Were all ours
But at the end
All these things
Leave us in solitude
TIPS FOR PERSONAL PEACE
By Fatoki Temilehin (15 years old, Nigeria)
To be a successful visioneer,
You should know that
To achieve, you must set goal
To set goal, you must plan
To plan, you must meditate
To meditate you must analyze
To analyze, you must share
To share, with those that care
Who care to see you achieve
To achieve, you must believe
Then your life embraces peace
FREEDOM
by Adewumi Olumide B.
To give this purging of heart a Fallopian tube,
With foreshadow, I shall announce its coming.
To the statue of the great thinker man have I spoken, yet more chains
And binds I got, for I have been tied down by my own ways and deeds.
Years ago, I travelled to a village far and old
To seek the words of a shaman, great and bold.
He poured down his cowry and spoke some verses,
But his gods were silent on my quest and hitches.
Then I told him to summon the dead,
Those heroes who made captivity flee in dread.
And with the speed of time, he yielded my tongue
And quickly they came, those living voices that once sang the freedom song.
First was Lincoln, that slavery King,
Who chased slavery out of America with his civil war Sting.
I asked him to show me the way I should trend,
But he shook his head and left me to my questions and end.
In despair and grief I called on Luther
The Black freedom Dreamer
To tell me how I might be free from my bond and chain
But, like Lincoln, he gave me more pain,
And at last I called on Mandela, that apartheid Lord,
Who fought bondage intensely with his freedom Sword
To help me out of this dilemma,
And like the rest of them, he showed the same cinema
Exiting the realm I caught a thought: there was but one I have failed to hallow
Into the questioning roundtable, and OH MINE! I was but that fellow.
I have chained myself to a lover’s debt who I had once vowed amity
Yet chased away without a heart to care or pity.
Now I know, till when I take my words for words,
I will forever remain in this bondage, chains and odds.
A COUNTRY IN GEHENO
by Ewuola Bayo Olanrewaju
The poignant pogroms of the innocent creatures
Rattled the rancorous ransacked yet to be tranquillised country
The explosive banging in the Northern axis
Kidnapping-ransoming saga in everyday South
And the ritual escapades in the West-
All calls for Agbantara- chesterfield
The skirmish of the fourth estate of the realm
Fomented by the so considered pathfinders of our nation
Has articulated her endangered organogram to wreck
Alas! The threshold of our oneness is sagging
And we doubt if ever there was a country
Nigeria! Yea, a country in Geheno
Awake from your Tarshish journey
Else, be subsumed by the Bermuda of the jungle
And the umbilical ligature binding you become weakened
Awake oh country and gather your scattered offspring!
Tread their labyrinth to peace, else, we fall a-peace!
BIOGRAPHIES OF THE POET
Abegunde Sunday Olaoluwa is a highly inspiring motivational writer and speaker with a pleasant sense of expres
sion, yet very objective as he drives home his points clearly. The Nigeria-Born African writer, speaker and poet was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth and thus has passed through ample of challenges yet eventually ignited the unleashing of his potential. He is wholeheartedly compassionate about impacting people from all walks of life. He is the Principal Consultant of Speaking Pen International Concept and curator of Multivisionaire Network of Writers.
Poet Sunday is rightly described as a distinctive voice to this generation that should be heard and read. He is the author of bestselling inspiring book, “Unleash your Potential beyond Just Motivation” and also has his poetry collection titled “In His Realm”.
He won the FPASU Award 2013 as Most Inspiring Writer of the Year and also ACJ/CNN Outstanding Young Achiever 2014.
Bob McNeil was influenced by the Imagists and the Negritude Movement. Furthermore, even after all these years of being a professional illustrator, spoken word artist and writer, he still hopes to express and address the needs of the human mosaic.
Shannon Marie Antoinette Samuda is from Kingston, Jamaica. She is currently a student of the University of Technology, where she is studying Communication Arts and Technology.
Her inspiration for her poetry works comes from her surroundings or her thoughts. They reflect and embody her life experiences, both good and bad.
Károly Sándor Pallai is a PhD student at Eötvös Loránd University - Budapest. He consecrates his research to the contemporary francophone literatures of the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
He’s a member of several international scholarly societies and literary associations (Mauritius, France, United States, Australia, Colombia).
He’s the conceptor, founder and editor in chief of the international electronic review of literary creation and theory Vents Alizés and of the publishing house Edisyon Losean Endyen. He’s a member of the editorial board of the Seychellois literary review Sipay.
He writes and publishes poetry in French, English, Creole, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese, Kiswahili, Romanian, Tahitian and Turkish. His collection of poems in French, Soleils invincibles was published in 2012, his play, Mangeurs d’anémones and his collection of poems in English, Liberty Limited were published in 2013. In acknowledgement of his theoretical, poetical and editorial work, he has been chosen among the "50 Young Hungarian Talents" by the La femme magazine.