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Best Poems Written by Padmore Agbemabiese

Below are the all-time best Padmore Agbemabiese poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Padmore Agbemabiese Poem

Will You Come To Say Goodbye

when the last breath of life
is gone and my lips are as cold as the dog’s nose
when my friends gather 'round
for the farewell party
will you return with a smile to say 
goodbye

there will be flowers from those
who cry when I'm gone
and lots of tears from those I left in the world alone 
and I know some will have fun at the farewell party
but will you return with a smile to say 
goodbye

don't be mad at me for wanting your goodbye
and dying for the smile we shared 
this you need to know as true
when my life in this unfaithful world is through
I'll go away loving you still

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After You Were Gone

after you were gone
your presence manacled my soul and lingered
long on the streets of my conscience

caught on desolate fields of loneliness
silence and tears remembered
the beauty you created

your absence was felt on the breast
of my memory and the air I breathed
jammed at its doorways 
and death looked me in the face
and my eyes wept for your return

in the hearth of desires
your enchantment remained a lingering shadow
in every whisper on steep slopes of hope and I cried

now
every lip prays for the resurrection of our souls
and at the village square 
steps wait to see us walk our chiefly walk again

Details | Padmore Agbemabiese Poem

Letter To the Judge

dear Judge
if you were me, would you do what I did

because of the roots of my hair
some shadowy gulf gods got hold of me
and they laughed while they held me
in the howling fjord where my grandfather
once mopped their bathrooms and my father became
himself Satan’s Cheerleader on their fields 
till buckets of drafty sentiments took him away 

my family has grown like prominent objects
held tight by the fingers of piggy fishy air
and after sad diagnostics they sizzled in volts
drowned in pickling fluids while their children 
missed a mother’s love and her beans on Fridays
and forever they now wait to free their laughter

if you were me, would you do what I did

for centuries we’ve walked through a voiceless lawn
enshrouded by whirlwinds surging through nights
have you ever tasted our drafty sentiments for a day
I wish you did to know the burden of agony we carry
in the long sweep of human history

were you not there when certain nostrils prickled on pale  
faces and they dug up false Darwinism sentiments at night
then they hoisted innocent frames between envy and hate
between man and beast between darkness and blindness
and the young frames blazed like a bonfire at Easter
if you were me, would you do what I did

honorable judge 
why is it that all you know of me is Ben Craig

Details | Padmore Agbemabiese Poem

Life In the 'Projects'

like sparrows on the streets and in caves
consider how they swoop and dive 
and fatten on dusty pizza crumbs 

consider the raccoons how they squawk and squalor 
peck and fight for space to grow fat gray hairs
and live as a family in the wild consider them

consider the homeless man on East Euclid dragging
Giant-Eagle cart on the sidewalk every hour
with rags searching through litterbins for a meal

consider the hare the rabbit the crow and ants
with no pay stubs yet with no long days of boredom
and they lie in cleanest beds and smile at dinner times

then consider me after the gavel and the long sentence
living with cancelled checks crying over lost purpose
scarred of sirens and hunting shelters for meals 

consider me sleeping in fields with dead numbers 
consider me whose far-distant ancestors never crashed
in any trash but drank coffee with Carnegie on his birthday

consider me coming out of institutions that mark me forever
with a bindi that blocks my name from the list of humans
and to live I have to peep through thorn bushes and grunt

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I Wish We Never Met

I never knew those supple eyes 
had a maelstrom of unkind desires
hidden in their peeps and tweets 

I never knew your embraces
have such cruelest spites
the most unkind in the divinely design

The lips are no source of life either, 
They birthed venoms spit death threats
conceived in the darkest shadow
 
In our search for pleasure 
I never knew it will be a consort of pain
that erupts agonies even in my slumber

they say living fire can beget cold impotent ashes
you’ve become yesterday's hot fire 
that begot today's cold ashes

and I wish we never met

Details | Padmore Agbemabiese Poem

We Are Where We All Belong

I do not know what happened 
before I became a singer, yet Agbozo says
we are where we all belong on this earth

they say the dog does not birth a child in public, 
to whom should I give my song in this hot noonday
when some say I should cover my face with my hands
that good things of this world some have it others don’t
that is why Agbayiza tells the wayfarers 
we are at where we all belong on this earth

yesterday, I carried my sorrows on my shoulders
like a net but I met an evil god on the sea at Azizanu
so I came home with my sorrows on my shoulders
and told the people in the town that the sea was bad
Agbayiza, listen to me, in the middle of my speech
all mad dogs of Agbogbloshie chased me to Ghostland

The royal palm says he does not talk in vain
it is the whirlwind that provoked him
what made bats to hide in eaves and come out at night
is known only to the Creator God and not us

Kofiloto, lets cry together, I’m a pilgrim of sorrow 
tossed in this wide world with nobody to hear me
they say what happened to you yesterday
and your wives run away to marry strangers
has become the flood waters ravaging my farmstead 
and now people want the son of the eagle
to turn a beggar in the market square

Why is Afitor and her people bellowing, yearling fuming
like a hippo, like a voice of thunder angry like a smallpox god 
terrorizing people in every stead, in every market square 
maybe I’m like a swallow imprisoned in the rafters of the rich
and they want to kill it and throw it onto the dunghill
but Agbozo, when the sea dries can’t you walk home
or when the market is closed don’t the sellers go home
it's always the useless dancer who blames the drummers

Akpalu once said, he lives his life in an anthill
That termites are his next door neighbors
Should anyone wish to love him that person should know
He is not alone, he lives with termites in his anthill
You said this tree is barren; it has no shade for your tired self
Why then are you wailing that it denied you comfort in the sun 
Or maybe the wailing is for your regrets

It was Kamasa who said he wished the diviner could tell him
why one mother gave birth to four children
one is A?uefunawo, another is Gb?gbl?bu, 
one is Deafeamekp? and the other is Enuemekpe 
N?vinyewo, we are where we all belong on this earth
when they birth me the priest did not know I’ll survive
so you too is surprised I didn’t turn a beggar at the market square

Details | Padmore Agbemabiese Poem

The Man In the Dark Saved Me

Last night, upon the stair in the house,
I met a man who was not supposed to be there
He looked at me from the corner of his eyes
And the more I came closer to him 
The more he drifted away into the dark 
When I got to the top of the stair, I looked down
He wasn't there.

Early this morning when descending the stairs 
The man was there again waiting for me
Slowly I descended the stairs 
This time he did not drift away and I dazed
My dress became wet and my legs wobbling
But when I looked ahead of me down the stairs,
I couldn't see him there at all, he was gone
But in a second, I saw him filmily at the door

My heart sunk when I saw him walk through the door
Then onto the street he went then turned to face me
My heart leaped onto my tongue feverishly 
He was the true image of an ancestor whom we loved
Seeing him was bittersweet and I fell flat on my face
I woke up to a shocking news in the hospital
Our office building caught fire and all workers perished
Then I remembered the man in the dark saved me

Details | Padmore Agbemabiese Poem

Hawks

Shall I say I have known the arms already—known all
I don’t need the eternal note of sadness before I believe you...

I’ve walked in the night-wind with its roar
carried dreams on the back on this darkling plain

yet, I never knew those supple eyes 
had a maelstrom of unkind desires
hidden in their peeps and tweets 

I never knew your embraces
had such cruelest spites,
the most unkind in the divinely design

The lips are no source of life either, 
they birthed venoms spit death threats
conceived in the darkest shadow
 
In our search for pleasure 
we never knew it will be a consort of pain
that erupts agonies even in my slumber.

Beneath the giant lady Liberty I stand confused
about the road to the land of dreams……

They say, living fire can beget cold impotent ashes
you’ve become yesterday's hot fire 
that begot today's cold ashes…….

Hmmm, wish we never met

Details | Padmore Agbemabiese Poem

Just a Broken Bottle

I remember when he grabbed me with his eyes
and I couldn't yell or scream but smile at him
slowly he led me into his dingy room 
where we could not be seen

behind the curtain he sat me on the couch 
then he sat by my side and my flimsy wrap fell
he gazed upon my slender form and touched my lips 
he was elegant and I was wet and cold and damp
and his touch of body was nice and warm

then his feverish lips he pressed to mine
I gave him every drop of what I had in me
and he drained me of my very self
I couldn't make him stop ‘cos for the first time  
I was loving it and loving it and loving it 
I cared less about what Papa may say 

I never wondered what Mama may say 
I was just loving it loving it loving it 
that's why you find me here today 
a broken bottle, drained empty to the bottom 
and tossed away in the trash of nothingness 
I who was once adorable and full of wine

Details | Padmore Agbemabiese Poem

Now I'M the One Who Must Go

after all these I’m the one who must leave
I’m the one who must find the door 
after your howling gales

after turning this heart into a mudroom cluttered 
with scratchy bites I’m the one who must go  
with nothing—with only my pajamas on

the judge says for the sake of the children 
I’m the one who must leave from my many years 
of labor live in a frozen car like one facing expulsion 
and with a heart muffled and breath stabbed I must leave
like nature rips apart the moon from the sun and night 
from day as if to wave off stiff icy mitts and look forward 
to spring when you can’t fold winter under your armpit

now I’m the one who must leave 
from everything, since everything
remains a testimony of how dangerous I could be

is it true that when love begins to sicken 
it speaks in many tongues for the judge to believe
and the people around become lunatics with crab heads