Little midnight bunny
Hid in deepest umbra
Cunning coyotes prowl
A spotted owl searches
Wherever can you go?
A rattler reached your hole
A wily weasel roams
Inky shadows shrinking
As the moon is rising
Wherever can you go?
A striped skunk skulks your way
Hunker down, let him stay
Two full cups of wine
even before we dine
Two more later, raised in song
What could go wrong ~
by midnight’s gong*
__________________________
*All food and drink must be con-
sumed by the middle of the
night... A 'Seder' is the order
of the ritualized ceremony of
Passover night.
Reaching soil from from one end of the earth to the end.
Anointing nutrients of life to growing existence.
Insisting on equal distribution and fairness of quality.
Nesting in the clouds until its due time.
This or that Volume 16 Poetry Contest
Sponsor:Edward Ibeh
Life faces two extremes, acme and nadir,
When we ascend to acme, we glow in its glory,
Self-confidence grows, sometimes ego too,
Seldom we reach out to people in need.
When we are down to the nadir point in life,
There is no hope, no sight of light in tunnel,
No one to cry on shoulders, no one to give a helping hand,
But the self-esteem comes in, hopes rise from ashes like phoenix.
We will face these phases in our lives,
Optimism extends hands to both phases of life,
Pessimistic thoughts will put you down,
Sometimes, looking for guidance from God helps us too.
The sky was streaking in the most
amazing blazing hearten colors.
I thought that I was impregnable
from the outside, quite challenging,
competitive world it commands.
Behind my desk I sit in my study.
The sun casts shadows through
the large windows, upon the large
exposed darkened room.
Piles of unopened bills spread out
I've ignored, rustled to open.
Stifled, I couldn't stop looking
at a letter, wishing it would
disappear, I just had read.
It's the banks final
repossession notice.
Feeling I was in prison.
Determined struggles of energy
to be rescued.
As many hours I put in working
to make everything go right
But, it was just not enough.
Opportunities of offers had open up,
but I knew it wasn't going to be enough.
Finding myself reaching the nadir of my
despair, I knew now my emotions
were hard to conceal.
Reflecting back in the beginning
I thought it would be easy, I was mistaken.
Whispering a small prayer,
"Lord, if it is your will; please help guide
me in this crushing storm I'm in
and bring the calm of the waves embrace."
Sleep escaped,
Without a farewell,
She had not the grace
To aspire my light,
She proved to be darker
Than her gaze,
Glaring, glowering,
Glowing with madness,
Bipolar’s destroyer – two sides of the coin
Despair, dread, doubt – depression
Delight, elation, wired – manic
Stages of dark and light,
Day and night,
A breath, a prayer, a silence
Flooded with fire –
Cold, brilliant desire….
Where she kindles a flame,
A feeling, a flavor
Peppered with light,
But pouring out – fight or flight,
Willing the spirit to mute
What is a glorious ruse.
Nadir deceptions in the form
Of acceptance, darkness and light,
Fading into day, then night,
Manic depression – bipolar like
The questions
That come to life
When there is no prescription,
Killing the sparklers
Within my mind, within my brain
Where bipolar is made
From two pieces of a maze,
A labyrinth who prays,
For God’s healing touch,
His endless grace,
Overflowing my cup, bringing
The chance to wake up
From the sleeplessness that pursues
Enemy of His truth,
Insomnia, the ruse!
A fable of worth weaves a fair tale,
that wealth possesses and not possessed.
A quest to feign means forges a trail
long jaded by the marks they unveil.
Though blind seeker's minds a treasured chest.
The hope for glory gloats jealousy,
the more the merrier, too cliche,
counting amounts to a specialty
until idle growth reels entropy.
Insignificant be, sensed doomsday.
While the moment ill-timed takes pleasure
as imbalance shortchanged one's fortune.
Debt collectors knock at their leisure
of court rulings, list your worth's measure.
It is beyond the call of margin.
Though street level, not truly gutter,
err midst a fool lacks austerity.
Low-life address as a deal cutter
a debt paid in full hangs aflutter.
A world minus dreamt prosperity.
He had a house and money he could spend.
But that was not enough; he wanted more.
He met a person posing as a friend,
and she could see that greed was at his core.
She flattered him. His mentor she became.
She got him to invest all that he had.
Too gullible was he to guess her game.
He sobs with grief now, feeling ever sad.
He took out loans and put himself in debt
to feed his need to be a wealthy guy.
He’ll lose his house and possibly his wife
here now at the lowest point of his life.
Nadir : point on celestial sphere vertically opposite to Zenith
At about 4 a.m nadir in body temperature occurs reaching peak about 6 a.m.
Direction pointing directly below a particular location.
In geophysics, nadir points direction of force of gravity at that location.
Reconstruction period of African - American race relations
Nadir in the lowest point of journey of life.
At every step to soar high to reach Zenith.
Dormant dreamy desires direct to be away from Nadir.
In life, Nadir points the origin of its start.
Running rushing, transcending death to be back at Nadir completing cycle.
The paths of my mission would be rows of roses, I thought.
To my shock, in tipsy turvy twists and turns, I got tossed
Didn't I desire to know the known to know the unknown?
Each wish of mine, like worn-out shoes of a nomad, got torn.
The moon of joy in my gains should have been at the zenith.
Struggles, like palms, tall-grow. Bliss, like dried grass, peeps from beneath.
Like iron-rods in saline waters getting eroded
The weakness of my will, like pumpkin buds, is unfolded.
Virtues, as fallen scaffoldings, are disintegrated.
Absurdity, like the blood red moon, is reiterated.
My vigour, before my puniness, like a dewdrop, fades.
Apprehension and anxiety, like gems, I adorn.
Pessimism lifts its head like boom-slang cobras from burrows.
Coffins and graves compose knells. The deceased have no repose.
Death and decay have become the blessed norm of the day.
Despair and disappointment, like thorns, pierce through every way.
Self-confidence is erased like mud paths during monsoons.
Will the Times, like the rainbow chromas, bring multihued boons?
NADIR
Never knew I could sink so low
As when you walked out through the door.
Don’t know why you had to go.
I’ve nothing to live for any more
Rock bottom now you’ve hurt me so
I tried to write my
magnum opus masterpiece -
but managed just this.
The worst nadir in my young years
that brings me still to shed sad tears;
while I was pregnant- months to wait-
September, nineteen fifty-eight.
My new friend's child was six weeks old,
and for a while, left me to hold
and watch her for an hour or two
while she ran errands that were due.
I fed and rocked her sound to sleep;
with love, my arms around her keep.
When Mom returned, she quickly went;
no signs of heartache- felt or sent.
Come morning, we woke from a scream-
and thought perhaps, Mom had a dream!
But no! Such horror took our breath!
Her baby passed- classed as crib death!
I could not comfort my dear friend;
her miracle came to an end.
Just like myself, so filled with mirth-
she'd waited for the thrill of birth.
Now, sixty-five years since that day-
this hurt within won't go away.
Though from that base, we all did part-
still feel my friend's pain in my heart.
A fleeting Fata Morgana that transmutes the deadly shiver of existence into the chrysopoeic alchemy of the infinite, where the boundaries of time and space are but a mere illusion.
NADIR
I never thought it got as bad as this
But surprise surprise, it really has now
Who would guess being hit when down
Like the last moment before you drown
It has all gone awry, I don’t know how
If only I could give this moment a miss
It is truly the nadir of my life to date
Will nothing good now ever survive
All can now see that I’ve fallen apart
And may even die of a broken heart
As yet more bad luck may still arrive
All I can do is patiently sit and wait
There were times when I was at the top
The zenith some call it, being up there
I looked down but never really thought
That I would hit bad times of any sort
I’ll find a way to pay it all back, I swear
Please make this wretched sadness stop
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