Drunk is the man,
Who gave me the roots of my existence
In this harsh, cold and dark world...
For instance,
He beats up his so-called darling heartbeat
To a pulp, saying she's not caring about him
Yet he spends the little he gets
In bars, so late at night
With his friends, who dance to the tunes of alcohol
And use that chance to know harlots biblically...
He pounces on them as prey
Though they spread disease in the community
Alas! The more he laughs, is the more he loses soberness
Harnessing thoughts that we are his enemies
On his return, to our ramshackled house!
They say that a home is a safe place
But to me it's like a warzone
A heart rage of shame...
Mother, so verbous that her words land out of place
As she fires gruesome tantrums to her husband
And as African men once nurtured,
They shan't tolerate disrespect from a woman
When he flogs her in front of my siblings and I
Indeed our miniature size, prevails as our weakness
Seeing our mother bleed, to the brink of death!
Family ties welcoming with warm bliss
midst kiss and hugs of every brod and sis
contagious laughter of exuberance...
exude our ancestral house we can’t miss.
Thus, in passing by an ancient abode
its garden full of ferns, and weeds-bestowed
decrepit roof whispers “I need repair”
we just sighed at the load along the road.
Evoking forlorn beyond grandeur-state
ramshackled porch hides against rusty gate
while antique door bearing rosette design
shows golden staircase railings of great weight.
Touched by the sight of the pitiful site
we know in our hearts, we should do what’s right
as now, we behold through our van’s window
home we pray* as our faith's dome of delight.
*2Thessalonians 1:11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power.
July 18, 2020
2nd place, "Decaying House" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Constance La France; judged on 7/19/2020.
I stack my bricks together
Assemble one by one
Construct myself a barrier
To hide from everyone
My soul's become too fragile
It's shivery and weak
Ramshackled by dishonesty
Enfeebled by deceit
So I've engineered a fortress
An rampart for the pain
Ensconced behind my barrier
I'll never hurt again
So I stack and stack and stack my bricks
My emotion thwarting wall
A soul saving work of masonry
To shield me from it all
In the city of David,Bethlehem,
beaming stars spread across the sky,
lights reflecting from all nooks,
cool breeze with twinkling elements,
ramshackled stead enveloped
with clusters of shimmers.
Baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths
but engulfed with eternal glory,
the honour that abounds forever.
Every dawn starts an extreme desire
A desire to have her by my side,
May be cuddle her,not even kissing
That alone can quench my thirst for her
I know she doesn't love me
She has proven it severally
But my heart won't listen
It's firm and stubborn for her.
It lures me to calling her at night
To disappointments,no answer
Just like she didn't answer last night
'May be she's doing the dishes'
My heart would murmur to me
But frankly its much late for dishes
'Then may be she's out to pee'
It'd respond quickly.
She snubs me, deliberately
I've seen her go out with Ivan
And yeah,I confirmed they kissed at the party
My best poem ever,I wrote to her last summer,
I found it in the dustbin, ramshackled
She's called me a fool,idiot,gobshite
Moron...let me conceal the rest
But my foolish heart won't listen
It's firm and stubborn for her
It's called desperate love,
May be you're a victim
But your heart just murmured
'Of course you're not'
Just to blindfold you.
What can I do?
Back to my Roots
I returned home to see my folks
After being away too long
Found my way back to my family home
But everyone was gone
Where has everybody gone?
My family and my friends
I needed to come home
I needed to make amends
I drove past the factories
Where my ancestors worked nights
They were deserted and ramshackled
Surrounded by building sites
I looked through a broken window
And was amazed by what I'd seen
My late Grandfathers overcoat
Still draped over his machine
The birthplace of my friends
And their parents long before
Had been replaced by high-rise tower blocks
Floor upon floor upon floor
All the old shops replaced by a shopping mall
Old houses replaced by council estates
Lifelong workers now on the dole
The government blind to their fates
I feel so out of place
And my mind is filled with fear
My hometown is no longer familiar
Why did I come back here?
A trillion ghosts of bugs
quietly haunting
this ramshackled shack.
I only notice them
on hollowed eves
when I am lying on my back.
An entire hive of apparitions—
Oh, how empty it looks
to the unwise.
To be alive on this side—
Hallucinating through fire
and ultra-focused eyes.
I have more friends than anyone I know.
hiding in the lap of this field,
i can hear your barrel
knocking at soil,
chuckling at my
ramshackled dreams
it was you ,man
you was my brother once ,
younger son of my mother,
i can smell mammas
umbilical cord ,
when you throttle my heart,
pierces through my veins,
pouring chemical fumes
at my damp skin,
i prayed for your bliss,
to the eternity,
through my breaths, sighs,
you got golden marks,
crushing at my limbs,
you squeezed degrees
and fames,
your labs was my
mausoleum,
your pesticides
was my
killer
your fames was my loss,
i can see you brother
bearing the white powder
in your arms
to demolish my
larvas,
tadpoles,
with your famished
tongue
you made my sorrows ,
the best item for your
supper,
with a despairing sigh,
i'm writing my
name on your homes
again and again,
because your
sons may not know
what is a frog
Fishwives
In junkets to
the golden shore
Beside the cobalt
sea of lore
Was told of dwellings
and rapscallions
Of ramshackled wood
and galleons.
Where ancient mariners
and the breeze
Sailed upon
the unknown seas,
Where wives and fish,
in nets, were caught,
And the spoils of labour
sold and bought,
And 'neath the starry skies
would sing
Of trawlers and
the nets they'd fling,
Starboard bow
and guillemot peck
The flapping herring
upon oily deck.
Where wives and fish,
of griddle and broth
Spit and cuss
in their beery froth,
And carving ships
in dry whalebone
The men, of gods
and serpents, moan.
By dark, by habit,
by candle lit
Gather in separate
huddles, sit,
Weary lines upon
a salty thread
Weave and knot
their minds to bed.
To dream of junkets
to a golden shore
Where told of dwellings
that are no more,
Where supper served
in a driftwood dish
Would taste as sweet
as wives and fish.
Come forth children
Wiping thy weeping eyes
While I hold you in my bosom
At the ramshackled scenery.
Weep not children.
Wipe thy eyes though they behold corpses-
Squashed bodies of loved ones:
Though I weep, I call thee to me
And I shall hug you to sleep
While singing my lullaby.
Oh the littered town? Corpses asleep-
Asleep?
The sidewalks filled with rescuers’ prizes-corpses:
Sirens weeping in the rain, rescue workers working to death:
Oh! Children, weep not of the dead,
But weep for the Earth.
Ramshackled heart,
rusted chains of indifference,
scars the arms with jagged cuts,
lines encased in deep throated laughs,
gagging on the insolent indifference.
Walk that mile in shoes of lead,
weighted down with suffrance,
magnetized with fetid truths,
masks of righteous lies,
and truths that barely scrap the earth.
When eyes are opened,
the ones sewn shut,
and the brightness blinds for moments,
the stinging breath of something known,
this life is just the dream.
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