Kinsmen Poems | Examples

Moonlight

Chakpii!
Wooo! ! !
We have gathered
On grandfather’s stoneseats
After a hurried meal,
This moonlight...

Assemble, children, and hearken
To the tales we know
And heard from
Our fathers...

Chakpii!
Wooo! ! !
Oruru otu mgbe (Once Upon a Time)
The full moon, naked as birth, stood.
The silent leaves of mother forests
Listened;
All sternness loosened
In the face of the moon...
Conundrums,
Pulses,
Quizzes,
Proverbs...
A parched and famished ground once,
Now elated with
Grown ears; feet below in the
Wondering, dark and lonely soil

Chakpii!
Wooo! ! !
Oruru otu mgbe...
No distinction,
For among kinsmen
A child is the father of a man.

Charged upon native principles,
Conundrums,
Songs,
Quizzes,
Chants,
Oaths,
Verse,
Pulses...
Fortified in sponge-weave,
And voices coming from the one
Gong-hole
Scare
Cultural invasions,
Scientific blackmail,
Traditional irregularities...
Wafting fraternity,
The lunar concern ceases.

But we do not grope
In the dark,
For each eye is the other’s
Lamp.

Night Watch - For Rembrandt

The stars have descended a little lower, to keep us —
My kinsmen and I —company on this night watch
On a newly roused African night.
We filch a little bit of the effulgence of the waking moon,
Reluctant, with the invasion of jealous clouds, their plumes
Fragile with inconsistency.
We rely on the luminescence of each other’s eyes and the trust
In our hearts
Tinder, broken by flying flickers of fireflies,
Shine through the breath of darkness, dis-virgining the chunky yolk
Of secrets and the clout of night, so corvine.
Every breath keeps us warm and frightens the monsters lurking
Around the lean corridors of the enchanted thresholds.


The heavens stare downward —witnesses to a stifling explosion of
Will; so are the crepitating crickets and cicadas —in prayers they
Egg us on, and through borrowed liturgy of nocturnal canticles.
The heartbeats in us make silenced music —loud only by the essence of
Gaiety and humming drums lightly tapped by ancestral fingers,
Helping to warm our hearts and will in the face of the severest darkness


Made lighter by the glows of slow-running lights — the broad painting of
Dawn.

Grief

I remember the grief in Samuel
when Saul failed,
like the grief in Nile
when blood crept into it —
just like it creeps into the bones of
this earth.

The rage in grief is distant but distinct,
escorted by bits of frozen nuts
and wizened grains of desert sand,
white assembly of killing spectres in
a background of black eclipse with
lunar talons
and swords of claws
and jars of cold tears.

Oh, how Samuel grieved for Saul!

The mourning is immense . . .

Sempervirence fossilised
along abbeys forayed with hot silt
and Dane guns of lewd hunters

Pulsations and acrid fever,
with the disease of camels, are frequented by
a recrudescence of the mastodon,
In liaison with his extended kinsmen the dinosaurs.

We are livid with mourning,
for the soul of a toothless one
gone from us
this grey day of elegy
and season of potent grief.

Fetters exist, and persist, swinging in
our faces like treasures of hell
where we hear that bug-ridden mats
are spread for us;

there, chants of elegy
hoot,
and black furnaces boil
and smelt
the repast we are to devour.

SCARS OF TRIBALISM

Look how fractured a people we are
The strong bond we once shared
Is no longer anywhere to be found
Except in the torment where we are bound.

We let an unknown concept
The babble of the tongue
The marks on one's cheek
Divide us, leaving our lives to reek.

Here we are still struggling
To stitch the patches on our lives
For a senseless war of tribes
Our kinsmen left to rot and die.

Have you ever wondered
That we are brothers born from the same earth?
Why should we be torn apart by birth
With tribal lines drawn in our blood so deep?

Once, we stood side by side
In unity, strength, and pride
Now, scared of our brothers' shadows
A bee hive on our every elbows.

Can we find a way to mend
To heal the scars and make amends?
To see each other with kinder eyes
And let the spirit of unity rise.

For in the end, we share one land
One future, one guiding hand
Together we can break the chains
And wash away these tribal stains.

Song of the Rock

Upon this rock, was my fate etched
By the hands of Akooke Olemo. 
I lingered on her laps like mummy’s boy,
Though my own blood at me, distantly beckoned.
Her Martian hand nurtured and nourished me, 
And made me dance to the Luo drumbeats;
Singing sweet songs in tongues, tongues of discord;
Music that ruggedly rutted the faces of my kinsmen!
Then our native drums sounded a call,
A call to a wayward son of the soil,
An invitation long awaited, 
A time for initiation into the ways of Ateker.
And to the cadence of Atenus beats, my feet did rebel.
Now, to my motherly rock, I must return;
For in her rough rugged back,
Was my dismally dark destiny scribbled:
“Emoit.”

Not This Rose

I saw a dazzling rose,
Whose red petals cast blinding hues upon me.
She shot her cupid arrows from the Kabaka’s backyard,
And punctured the cocoon of my innocence.  

My heart burnt for a feel of her spangled petals,
My ferocious passions lost their sturdy grip on restraint as
I, like a pollen-famished bee, sniffed her whiff;
I gorged on her rosy scent, like a Don Quixote.

Then, I plucked her off the tribal bough;
And navigated the Nile River with her,
Tacked in the valves of my heart,
For a cross boarder allogamy.

What a welcome from my kinsfolk!
Furrows ridging the faces of my kinsmen,
Spittle of disgust masticating the hungry soils,
Grey beards wagging and waging a silent war;
 Alien!

The Birth of Our Lord

Christ in a manger was laid,
regally known but lowly;
his royal identity
was to three wise men revealed,
but from his kinsmen concealed.

Christ was in Bethlehem born;
his royal ancestor's city.
A king that sinners would scorn,
and would by his friend be betrayed.

Messiah to the unholy;
born to salvage the wicked
with the blood of his innocence.
He was nailed with no evidence,
He shared the fate of the crooked
but his unjust conviction
he never appealed against.
Born that we all might be cleansed,
born that men no more may die,
born that men may reign on high,
and born that men might see God.

A Way In the Manger

Out of a manger, one named Emmanuel
for three years sought to show His kinsmen the Way.
The Light of the World, His lips hasted to tell
of sweet forgiveness when men choose to obey.

Away from the manger, do we celebrate
the birth of a Savior angels don’t discern? 
We claim Him as our Lord, yet we hesitate 
to share His forgiveness so our kinsmen can learn - 

the Way in a manger quickly came to a cross;
the Truth, the Life, and the Way - God's master plan.
When we keep Him a secret, earth suffers loss.
Yet His Spirit stays, the yoke of sin to outspan.

November 29, 2022

Sponsor	Unseeking Seeker
Contest Name	Journey without movement

Land and Ownership

His forefather migrated,
He left his kinsmen, 
He left his clan,
He went in search of a home,
He journeyed far from his homeland,  
He traversed territories,
None was befitting to settle,
Some were private properties,
Others lacked the serenity he desired, 
He journeyed further until he found a place,   
A place that embraced him, 
A place of pristine beauty,
A place where the river 
goes in a tranquil flow,
He grew and became great,
From a few people to a great nation.



October 28, 2022.

Saro-Wiwa

My tears run from the coastline
To the Atlantic
My grief is fueled
By the flare of oil wells
My hope is dashed
By the disaster of oil spills
And my only voice of justice
Is hanged with the noose.

O kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa
They shut your mouth with threats of bullets
But you became MOSOP to protest
They crushed MOSOP with the noose
To the dismay of the world.

But today your voice remains active
In the many tales you tell
Of a woeful nation and the sufferings of your kinsmen:
Sosa Boy, Forest Flowers, Songs In A Time Of War, Nigeria: The Brink Of Disaster,
The Singing Anthill, Genocide In Nigeria: Ogoni Tragedy…

They thought they have murdered you
But you merely traveled beyond to rest
And left us with our tales of woes
Where they hunt us like squirrels.
Tell me, who will fight for our justice,
Who will console us from our calamity?

O my tears run from the coastline
To the Atlantic
My grief is fueled
By the flare of oil wells
My hope is dashed
By the disaster of oil spills
And my only voice of justice!

Brotherly Dignity

My brother, you as well as I know
That I should have wished you well long ago
Nevertheless I wish you well now
As I make to wishing wellness my vow

We brought each other down at our own expense
So myopic was our lense
We each saw only what was one's own
Until our doors were knocked and banged by others' groans

Therefore I wish you rain and I wish you dew
May God give you a robe and turban white and new
Be the walking dignity of we your kinsmen
And may we resemble gloriously as brethren

For the flourishing of one and another and another
Will breed praises to God whenever we'll gather
May it proliferate throughout the nation
That the peoples may draw from us citation

And when it's all done and unabated
So will it be to the sons an inheritance slated
So soaking will Godliness be to our name
That repute will be more than fame

K. Muitherero.

Apocalypse, Repost

Nothing shall save you from the flames. Sizzling, you’ll flee to and fro,
Remorseful of your former greed which bought you that rue and woe.
Your faiths and sciences, arts, or crafts shall not avail. You’ll excrete
All your past joys. Alas, too late this at last you’ll come to know!

Amidst the instants in the flares which last each like an era
You shall not see the seeds of lies you all your lives had to sow;
Nor shall they know their begetters. Strangers shall be the kinsmen
Who entertained one another as if thousand years ago.

What you gleaned out of crookèdness at the cost of your dear lives
Shall melt with you and drip into the soiled earth of yours below.
Naught shall remain of you devils. Your filth perished, new creatures
Shall arrive to take your places, a new dog and pony show!

You knew not the aim of living. Wait for the last burning blow
To make a myth of you on earth: Here today, gone tomorrow.
2.26.2020
 
Updated Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxJHecyYBno

I wonder what we are up to in profaning precious souls
And recklessly disregarding the hour for us the bell tolls.

No comments, please!

Lest We Forget

 Somewhere there is a field,
in that field there is a stone.
The men that lie beneath it,
are men that are unknown.
This solemn stone holds words 
and those words it holds are few.
But those few words it holds,
are words that hold so true.

THESE BRAVE MEN STOOD UNITED
AND UNITED THEY GAVE ALL.
IN HOPES THEIR KINSMEN WOULD REMEMBER,
IF DIVIDED THEY WILL FALL.



2/15/21

You Must Love Yourself First

To fully enjoy life, you must love yourself.
So dust your dendrites and jump off the shelf.
In order to neutralize your angst and strife, 
You must love yourself, to fully enjoy your life. 

Within your sweet heart your secrets are solid and secure.
Keep them innocent and keep them protected and pure.
Loving yourself unconditionally is what will keep you apart. 
Your secrets are solid and secure within your sweet heart. 

Self-approval and full actualization -your ultimate life goal.
Living your empowering truth nurtures your spirit soul. 
Idealistic living and nirvana can be an actual factualization.
Your ultimate life goal – self approval and full actualization. 

Keep an open heart and inspire others to enhance your truth.
Loving yourself first will be the role modeling living proof. 
To honor your kinsmen, relatives, fathers and empathetic mothers,
To enhance your truth, keep an open heart and inspire others.

Written 7-8-2020
Contest: Swap Quatrain
Sponsor: Emile Pinet

Prerogatives

Diverse ideas vie for fecund place 
In my mind and heart these days, 
Every new thought sees the next
As an invasive unwelcome guest. 

And being a democratic fella at heart, 
I just wouldn't wish to play major part
As judge if privilege and freedoms be
Basis why litigious kinsmen disagree.

To every thought there's natural right
Enshrined in legal folios beyond fight: 
Any idea may claim an acre of mind, 
In any random astute brain they find. 

And so I a respecter of sacred things
Such as fragile rights of mute beings, 
Must let every instreaming opinion in; 
And call null their war and brutish din. 

For, has not every sovereign thinker, 
Rights of their own to soundly tinker,
And censor apt and odd notion alike, 
That within their wild cranium spike?

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