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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
The Orderly Flame
In a burning chaotic fire there are beauty
There are acts and orderliness and a duty
There is a distinct ability in disabilities
There are arrangements in a burning fire
Find the orderliness in your addiction desire
And any other activities
To be an addict, in the language of the world
Is in a strict sense, a challenge of survival
It denies the seductive allure of substance use
It is a misplaced greed, marrying the chemical
Carving art from the degradation of the self
It is an outpaced desire that caught fire
The brown, enormous odour of the barn,
The simple sense of holding a cigarette,
The pipe, the usual routine, the behavior.
A trusted act, like a rooster deep in feast
With a throaty crow all swallowed by the chaos
Swinging from the rafters of the weary mind
Singing like a bird, but her voice was a cage
A tragic beauty pinned to the spotlight,
A wild elephant tied to the Iroko tree
Paying the cost of existence without belonging.
The junkie demon revealed, reels in an act
Though unwilling but consuming identity,
Demanding, deep in debt, leaving a life marred
By the decay of an extraordinary talent undone
I am both the thief, the store and the stolen
I know what I want, and I want what I know.
Given the opportunity, I choose the other I too know,
Locked in the portrait of the opoid or alcoholic.
Wrestling the complexities of recovery,
Searching for self-acceptance in the wreckage,
Still searching for the desire in the fire.
A hidden ambivalence makes a cry
This is the duality of the addiction demon
The bond that holds you in protracted captivity
Presents itself as your salvation
The only thing that makes you feel home.
Though you know it’s a lie, you still feel temporarily home
Help me cut the circle before starvation.
It is a struggle, a challenge and the change
Needs all support and wise exchange
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
The Vanished Lineage
(Remembering eighteen million African enslaved by Arabs)
The sand remembers eighteen million footsteps in the heat,
Yet where are all the children of their weary, broken feet?
We trace the line to Europe, and to the Western shore,
But looking toward the desert, the descendants are no more.
A millennium of silence spans the ancient, trading hand,
From the seventh to the twentieth, across the burning land.
The trans-Saharan highway, the Nile’s deep, winding bed,
The Indian Ocean waterways that carried out the dead.
We cry aloud for justice, and the West must pay its debt,
But what of Arab brothers? Have we chosen to forget?
An empire built on raiding, on tribute and on blade,
A brilliant, cruel destruction in the shadows that they made.
The West desired the young men to till the heavy loam,
But the Eastern masters wanted the women for the home.
Three sisters for each brother, in the harems of the East,
To serve the hidden palaces where masters came to feast.
And for the captured brothers, the blade was cold and deep,
A legacy of castration that ensured they could not keep
The bloodline of their fathers, nor sow a future seed
A high and fatal torment born of ownership and greed.
They guarded rooms as eunuchs, they faded in the stone,
And so they left no children to claim what was their own.
No millions now to gather, no voices left to rise,
To ask for reparations beneath the desert skies.
Yet language holds the echo, Swahili on the coast,
A blend of mixed inheritance where sorrow is the host.
A sensitive and layered past that time cannot erase,
The missing generations of a stolen, vanished race.
The question what we seek, that lingers ist
The issue of reparation by the West and a twist
Will they return? Do they exist??
Where are they to the least, I do insist???
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
Remembering Yesteryears In Nigeria
Poem 1: The Soil and the Sprout
(An ode to the Igbo land,
to Odinani, Odibe-ndi and Omnani Ndi Igbo)
Two grand Rivers meet in an intimate ocean romance
leaving the scene as one River, only to part several onto ocean
The Rivers; Niger and Benue the great waterway towards the globe
Where Igbos, Igalas, Brions some Hausa and Yoruba team
trade at the food basket at confluence town lokojas
Teams from neiboring cities come through he Great two Rivers
The Great River splits the red earth into two,
But the blood of the lineage runs ancient and true.
Before the new cross, there was Ala the ground,
And the worship of Chukwu where spirits are found.
We bury the seed-yam deep under the moistened clay,
And wait for the rains to wash hamathan away.
Then Iri Ji calls, and the masquerades rise,
With dust on their ankles and fire in their eyes.
The drums beat the rhythm of Surugede, for harvest and home:
No king owns this soil, and no king owns the throne.
Poem 2: The Republic of the Free
(Reflecting the fiercely democratic,
kingless nature of pre-colonial Igbo society)
“Njikoka,” they whisper—the strength to align,
Igwebuike the strengh of the teamhood
Yet no crown shall sit on your brother or mine.
“Igbo enweghi eze,” the old proverb rings,
A valley of equals, a nation of kings.
The elders assemble beneath the great shade,
Where laws are debated and judgements are made.
In thhe strict guidance of Ofo and oversight of Ogu
No palace of stone, no tyrannical decree,
Just the voice of the village, unbending and free.
For the title is earned by the sweat of the hand,
And the titles we carry belong to the land.
This is Ihie oha kara, Ihie di oha mma
Wealth accumulation,
(A standing ovation tribute to the IAS;
Igbo Apprenticeship System and entrepreneurial resilience)
From the ash of a war where the hunger ran deep,
Came a promise the sons of the sunrise would keep.
With a single suitcase and a ten-shilling note,
They stepped into cities to swim or to float.
Seven long years sweeping floors in the market,
Learning the trade, every price, every pocket.
The master watches, the boy bides his time,
Till the day of settlement—the moment to climb.
Now the boy is a master, the cycle starts new,
What was broken by iron, by commerce grew.
The Echo of Biafra
(A poignant look at the trauma (PTSD)
and survival of the Nigerian Civil War)
The borders were drawn by a pen not our own,
And the seeds of a bitter division were sown.
A flag in the East, a bright rising sun,
A dream of a country before it begun.
Then the sky turned to lead and the blockades came down,
And silence grew thick over village and town.
The hunger was weapon, the losses were vast,
A generation of ghosts that was tethered to the past.
Yet the sun didn't set when the banner was furled,
No Marshall law or support, no helping hand
No aids or borrowing to the comities
But we rebuilt bridges, Markets incommodity halls
For the heart of the Biafran outlived the whole world.
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
The Heart of the Rising Sun
(In search of the place of the Igbo nation in Africa)
By the banks where the Rivers of Niger interwatered with Benue
Spreading their wild tentacles to the farms and gardens terrain,
Turning this gleams and divides, into food basket state called Benue
In the soil of southeastern terrain,
Lies a nation of millions, where honor resides,
And the roots of antiquity and meritocracy reign.
From the cradle of Ugwuele, timeless and deep,
To the bronze that Igbo-Ukwu cast,
Bordering the ancient People of Igala
They are keepers of secrets the centuries keep,
With a future as vast as their past
Endowed with gifts and ornaments beautiful like the Ugbala
No monarchs or tyrants could capture their soul,
For their freedom was woven in sacred and just law;
By the elders and age-grades, the village made whole,
Protected by Ofo na Ogu and in the councils the ancestors saw.
When the shadow of empire demanded their knee,
The Ekumeku struck through the night,
Aba women rioted to the disgrace of the Empires civilization.
And the women of Aba stood fearless and free,
To reclaim what was theirs by right
They found no monarch to cajole in their vandalization
They are builders of commerce, the engine, the spark,
From the stalls where the markets expand;
Through the bond of entrepreneurs' of
Igba-Boi, they rise from the dark,
Lifting brothers to conquer the land.
In the factories of Nnewi, the engines are spun,
and industrial cities of Aba, businesses run
With a genius no hardship could tame,
For the spirit of Biafra, though tested by gun,
Still burns as an unquenched flame.
From the ink of Achebe, where cultures collide,
To the starlight Adichie has shed,
From the mathematic prowess of Chike Obi
to the pure calculus eloquence of Peter Obi
Their stories travel global on rivers of pride,
By the rhythms of Afrobeats fed.
Though scattered by oceans, their legacy stays
In the diaspora's heartbeat and tongue
The Igbo remain, through the length of their days,
The proud song that Africa has sung.
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
The Silent Millennium
(Where Are the Children of the Desert?
A millennium of shadows stretched across the shifting sand,
From the seventh to the twentieth, a heavy, trading hand.
Arab, Berber, sub-Saharan, charting routes of pain,
Binding ten to eighteen million in a long, enduring chain.
Across the harsh trans-Saharan waste, the Nile’s ancient flow,
To North Africa and Asian shores, the stolen lives would go.
Eastward through the Indian Ocean, where the dhows would ride,
To the Sultanate of Zanzibar, upon a tragic tide.
They laboured in the clove fields, where the sweet spices grew,
Acquired by raid and tribute, and a local bargain too.
Unlike the western ocean trade that sought the strongest man,
A different, cruel dynamic shaped this eastern, binding plan.
Three women for each lonely man were taken from their home,
To serve within the domestic walls, in harems made of stone.
And for the men, a sharper grief, the blade of the knife,
To guard the palaces as eunuchs, through a short and muted life.
Today the echoes linger on in memory and race,
A sensitive and layered past that time cannot erase
They call them; Afro-Americans!
Where are then; Afro-Arabians?
Africa, wants to know.
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
Which Way, Nigeria?
(Inspired by Sonny Okosuns)
A critical crossroads beneath the heavy sky,
Where promises falter and the weary wonder why.
Weighed down by the hardship of an economic strain,
A nation of millions echoing the same deep pain.
The currency weakens, the cost of living climbs high,
While a vast, restless majority watches hope pass by.
Over ninety-two percent say we tread the wrong track,
Feeling the weight of a country moving on wrong track.
Trust has worn thin in the halls of command,
As shadows of fear stretch across our green land.
From the terror of kidnappings that break the quiet night,
To the conflicts and insurgencies that dim the future's light.
The youth look away to a distant, foreign shore,
The "Japa" wave rising as they walk out the door.
Our doctors and dreamers, our skilled and our bright,
Seeking a sunrise in the middle of our night.
Yet the road lies ahead if we dare to rebuild,
To see the true promise of our country fulfilled.
Break down the corruption that eats at the core,
And rely on the strength of our oil fields no more.
Plant seeds in the soil, let production awake,
For the sake of the choices we now have to make.
With leaders held close to the light of the truth,
We can salvage the horizon for the sake of our youth.
In the words and honour of legendary Sunny Okosun
"Many years of our independence, we still find it hard to start.
How long shall we be patient, till we reach the promised land?"
This, our unofficial anthem for socio-political critique of Nigeria unsung
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
Voices In A Single Room
The vibrant weave of separate threads can strain the common loom,
As many voices rise to speak within a single room.
The promise of a shared future meets the weight of history,
Where differences in faith and law become a mystery.
A nation tries to build a bridge across a deep divide,
While keeping room for smaller worlds to flourish side by side.
The legal pages note the strain, the speeches track the cost,
To ensure that in the crowded whole, no single voice is lost.
It is a heavy, shifting ground where hope and friction meet,
A slow and complicated dance upon a diverse street.
A tapestry of many threads, a country rich and wide,
Where varied paths and distinct steps are walking side by side.
The crowded streets are full of life, a bright, unfolding scene,
Where flavors blend and rhythms clash, and colors intervene.
From different soils come fresher minds, with ways to re-arrange,
The static thoughts of older days and spark a creative change.
By living close, the walls break down, as quiet empathy grows,
To heal the spaces carved by fear and doubts that ignorance sows.
The hands that arrive to clear the gaps and build the moving gears,
Drive innovation through the engine room to carry us through the years.
Yet underneath the vibrant mix, the quiet frictions start,
When older truths and deeper roots pull common ground apart.
A worry speaks in muted tones: will what we share decay,
If separate worlds within one state just look the other way?
When systems fail to build the bridge, the quiet margins grow,
And leaving groups behind in dark means hidden hardships show.
A heavy, complicated balance, recorded in the state's command,
The struggles and the promises that shape a diverse land.
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
Africa; The Hidden Pride
The Tapestry of the Continent
It is not a single stone, nor a solitary crown,
Not a boundary on a map that holds a people down.
It is a collective tapestry, by countless hands designed,
Woven from the heavy threads of the history left behind.
A shared identity of strength, where deep resilience gleams,
Built upon a heritage of ancient, sacred dreams.
Out of the shadow of the past, the pillars start to rise,
As liberation’s heavy song echoes through the skies.
From Kwame’s voice and unified states on Africa’s proud day,
The chains of old colonialism gently slip away
Hear the heartbeat of the land in a thousand different tongues,
Where Igbo, Swahili and where Hausa, Yoruba rise from deep within the lungs.
Taste the comfort of the earth in akpu and ugali’s grace,
As rhythmic music fills the air and animates the space.
Yet the cradle does not linger only looking at the past,
The "Silicon Savannah" moves with innovations fast.
No traditional bank is needed when M-Pesa leads the way,
Rewriting how the global world does business day by day.
Beneath the great migration paths where wild wonders run,
Lie vast reserves of gold and iron catching the morning sun.
From fields of sport where long-distance champions claim the crown,
To Afrobeats and modern art that shake the global town.
Whether soaring through the clouds on wings of proud aviation,
Or rolling on the luxury rails across a dynamic nation,
It lives in textured coils of hair, in every flight and stride
A rising future, deep and vast: the true African Pride.
Onto the prize reposed on our daughters and sons
Has been tapped, harvested from field to field
The deposits has been returned as the full payment has been fulfilled
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
Poem 1.
High Tech Igboland
(A vision of a futuristic, hyper-technological Igbo nation)
The red dust of Enugu is paved now with light,
Reserves in its bosom high quality coal
Where quantum grids pulse through the tropical night
Creating business hot and cold.
The (IAS) Igba-Boi system is coded in lines,
Of algorithmic markets and digital mines.
No kings rule the servers, the network is free,
A decentralized web under the Oji tree.
From the ports of Onitsha to the stratospheric sky,
The drones of the Nri carrying solar cells fly.
We speak to the ancestors through neural arrays,
And the old drum beats on into holographic days.
Poem2.
The Rising Sun
(A solar-punk anthem of a reborn, self-sustaining state)
The banner we buried is lifted from rust,
No longer a ghost made of sorrow and dust.
The half-of-a-yellow-sun burns on the glass
Of a thousand mag-levs as they silently pass.
School system adopts dual system school training
Qualifying all to two or more occupations and trainings
We engineered rivers and captured the storm,
In the labs of Aba where the future takes form.
The blockades of old are a myth we outgrew,
When we built our own skies out of fiber and blue.
The scars on our history are patterns of grace,
As the first Biafran rocket steps into deep space.
Poem 3.
Neo-Odinani
(Blending ancient spiritualism with far-future technology)
The gods of Igboland and Nigeria,
Amadioha is trapped in a lithium core,
The lightning of justice is silent no more.
It powers the cities, it cleanses the air,
While the artificial minds offer Chukwu a prayer.
The shrines are biometric, the totems are gold,
But the laws of the earth remain exactly as told.
We preserve every forest, we heal every stream,
For Ala is the mother of the machine and the dream.
The cyborgs wear beads of traditional coral,
In a world where the metal is conscious and moral.
Poe. 4.
The Diaspora Return
(The gathering of the global Igbo family to the futuristic homeland)
From London and Texas, the star-ships arrive,
To the cradle where genius and enterprise thrive.
The language of proverbs is spoken by fleets,
Hovering high over neo-glass streets.
They return with the wisdom of worlds they have seen,
To the richest republic the planet has been.
No longer scattered, no longer displaced,
The blueprint of heritage finally embraced.
The future is Igbo, the future is now,
With the crown of tomorrow
Noe, placed on our own brow.
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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Emeka Goc Ogaraku Poem
Afro-Arabia Historical Trauma
The sprawling sand sea bridge; a mirage historical overview
Across the red sea, the dhows used to glide,
Where the sand of the desert met the ocean’s wide tide.
From the Horn of the east to the Swahili shores,
They traded in spices, in fabrics, and ores.
Then the seventh-century crescent rose high in the sky,
Bringing faith to the kingdoms as decades rolled by.
A fusion of bloodlines, a blending of speech,
As Arabic phrases reached the Zanzibar beach.
Yet history bleeds through the dirt and the stone,
The Trans-Saharan routes heard the captive man's groan.
An Indian Ocean trade that left a deep scar,
A trauma that echoes from near and from far.
The modern paradox in alliance and in friction
In the halls of Cairo, in the Riyadh sun,
They speak of a future where two worlds are one.
Nasser and comrades, unified in their stand,
To chase the pale empires away from their land.
Nine flags fly together in the Arab League fold,
While Gulf billions venture in infrastructure gold.
Yet a fracture still lingers in the modern day light
Where the border of identity splits black and white.
One without telling their histories?
From the banks of the Nile to the Sahelian sand,
Resource and water divide up the land.
While workers traveling north for a life that is new
Still look for the dignity they are rightly due.
Moving on without hearing their stories?
Historical Trauma; the scar of the slave trade
The desert is vast, the ocean is deep,
They carry the secrets that centuries keep.
Prolonged years, before they trade
West sailed to the Atlantic shore,
The caravans marched through the wilderness door.
For a thousand long years, the footprints were made
The wealth of empires built on a human trade.
Though faith tied the continents, a shadow remained
The memory of ancestors captured and chained.
We speak of alliance, of summits and trade,
Of strategic bonds that our leaders have made.
But the ghost in the ledger, the pain in the bone
Is a trauma of history that must be known.
Arab-African history is a tapestry
Of deep spiritual brotherhood woven alongside
Heavy, painful threads of human bondage.
Tensions of the Arab-African slavery
Historical PTSD relationship trauma.
A dynamics historical trauma
Copyright © EMEKA GOC Ogaraku | Year Posted 2026
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