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Best Poems Written by Divine Friday Idiong

Below are the all-time best Divine Friday Idiong poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

Noise

In Chibok,
An IED finds it way 
Into the mind of a savage sect
And made good use of the emptiness.

In helplessness,
Some school girls are bundled up
From their school compound; 
Taken for a noisy ride into Sambisa;
From where they will forget 
Their mothers’ voices.

On the tube,
There is a very loud lady 
Anathematising the “sharing” of blood 
In Borno.

When she is done,
The media is awash with the sound of
‘Na only you waka come?’ 

As if it is a joke 
To snatch young Nigerian girls 
From the four walls of their classroom
Into the coldness of the wilderness
To dwell amongst wild beasts.
To learn new lessons; 
Weird lessons.

In bed at night,
My wife talks of
Church bombings; 
Internally displaced persons; 
Slaughtering of citizens 
And the role of government in all of these 
And the security of our country 
And I pulled at the hairs 
From around her second mouth
To make her change the topic
And she falls for it and changes the topic.

The white bearded Mallam
On the rickety bus to Yola
Fixes his eyes on me 
Like some foreigner 
And I feel the fire 
All through the trip 
And I burn and burn and burn 
Like the victims of Nyanya motor park blast 
It feels good though to know 
What it takes to 
Be burned into countless degrees. 

But after three weeks 
I am back to normal again 
I can feel again 
My senses are back again 
Working optimally 
And I can hear again 
As the presidential pit-bull 
And the black parrot 
The one that used to be 
In the fourth estate of the realm 
Begin to met and dole out 
Slippery speeches, speeches you can’t hold 
That comes upon our ears 
To push out every substance 
From our heads 
Everything except this load of hopelessness 
This bitter bite in our mouth
This unwanted fetus
That no one would claim 

And then the hash tags;
The media craze; 
The count down 
The women in red 
And the men that joined 
The bring back our girls 
The Michelle Obama
The celebrities from across
The noise, the sweat, the blood 
The bloody thighs of those girls 
Their torn underwear 
Their wails, their sobs, their pains 
To say the least 
The echo, the deafening echo
And how we wave them all aside 
And look the other way. 
Like it did not happen at all 
Like it was just a movie 
Directed by a director 
That must be a sadist  
We sweep it under the carpet 
Like our other numerous
National issues

But I won’t write another story on betrayal 
I won’t write another poem 
On how a nation 
Could forsake her innocent children 
Instead I would write of a country 
Stealing, stealing, growing 
Growing resilient to emotion; 
Becoming many times dead
To any feeling 
Tearing its tissues to pieces 
And building new ones 
That will be senseless 
Lifeless 
Bloodless.

And the noise 
And the noise 
And the noise.

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

A Place Called Tomorrow

There is a place called tomorrow
Where this set of politicians
Who claim we elected them
Will all be gone
Even the last trace of their names
Will be no more.
No need naming names
Or pointing fingers at them
You and I know them well.
In that place called tomorrow,
Even their distant seeds that dare
Shall whisper those names in fear.

There, our government will be
Occupied by those we actually chose
To represent our interest as a people
Not marionettes brought forward by any party.
A government that will clearly
Define our economic system
And regulate it with sound policies.

There is a place called tomorrow
Where every Nigerian life
Will be held sacred as it should be.
Where there will be
Dignity of labour and
No man will be enslaved again
Where all the hinterlands
Will be linked to the heartlands
With love and respect
For man and the environment.

In that place called tomorrow,
Our enterprises and agencies
Shall wear a human face
Not bureaucratised in 
Bureaucratic bureaucratese
So that resources can be explored
Rather than exploited
For commerce to thrive.

There is a place called tomorrow
A place where we will look
At the children’s faces and see
Joy, laughter, beauty and innocence.
Not pain, hunger and criminality.
Where everyone will be
His brother’s keep
So that together we may conquer
Insecurity or the fear of it.
In that place call tomorrow,
Families shall gather together again
To eat breakfast and/or dinner.

I desire so much that day when
We all would have realized that
We were first humans
Before we belonged to any tribe
Or religion
Before we attained any status
We were first humans.
So everyone will be respect
For who they are
And not necessarily what they are.

In deed there is 
A place called tomorrow
Where all we desire will be
Yet it is in us fight
To make that tomorrow be.

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

Light At the End

When it hits my chest
It would not lay me to rest
It cannot bring about my end
So long I refuse to bend
Death on my chest
Is but a test
On my will to live up
To see if I would give up
The Giver would allow the pain
After seeing my faith on life
He would restore me again.
Death test is but in the while
Of a second
After which we can go on.

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

Salt of the Earth

It is people like you
Who make people like me.
To want to live on.

If alone to be there
When people like you
Need people like me
To live on too.

So I went to 
The market place
Called humanity shopping;
Shopping for something
Something special;
Special and valuable.

I asked for salt.
The seller tells me.
“Finished”
I said:
“Why? Where can I get it?”
She said the woman 
That supplies her salt was out of stock.

She said the woman
Had told her
The market where she
Gets salt was no more.
It has been bombed
By those who play
With bombs as if
They are fireworks.

It is people like us
Who make people like you
Want to live on
If alone to be there
When people like us
Need people like you
To live on too.

So I ran to 
The white man’s church
I met the black man
Put there to do his bidding.

I asked him
“Holy father, where are
The salt of the earth?”
He looked at me and said
“What are you talking about?”
I said the holy book says
We are the salt of the earth.

He looked away and snorted
“Oh that! Well,
We have no more salt  left here.”
“Where then can I find some salt?”
I asked.

He replied in agony
“Go elsewhere son,
I guarantee you won’t find any here.”


It is someone like you
Who makes someone like me.

So I went to the streets
I saw a beggar boy
Begging for alms at
The road side.

I pitied him but I walked past him
Like the reverend in his colourful cloak
Like politician in his posh jeep
Like the teacher in his thoughtfulness
And like the preacher in his pretense.

I looked back again as I passed
I saw a poor man
Throw the beggar boy
Some coins
But the money in my pocket
Was for salt.
For the salt of the earth.

It is someone like me
Who makes someone like you.

So you, like me, continues
Like so in this treachery
Called society.

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

Haiku For Japan

I try not to say
Sorry to Japan the morn
Sunshine of Asia

I won’t be tempted
To further cloud this sore heart
With my sea water

It is not distance
That holds back the salty fluid
From my eyes but love

My own apartment
Is flooded with Japanese
Electronic stuffs

My countrymen are
Just like the moving sun and
Cannot not be there

My American
Friend’s a teacher in China
Shining so, so close

Japan has become 
My backyard in this new world
Small global village

And the eyes also
Suffer the heat of pepper
Eaten by the mouth

So your pain, Japan
Has clouded my sanity
Yet I say weep not!

For by blood have kings
Wore their crowns; and with blood have
Empires been painted

And in blood do women
Deliver forth newborn babes
Blood brings good tidings

By blood had Asia
Risen above its storms. Ask
India, ask China

So weep not Japan
For blood does bring good tidings
In all climes and times

Let the rain wash off
The pain from your memory
The rite is over

Let the sun renew
Your seas and shores to prepare
You for the new dawn.

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

The Rhythm of the World

This morning in Aleppo
Was bloodshed
Gunshots, RPGs,
Bomb blast
Like the achaba suicide bomber
Of Kaduna
A little boy I Syria is running
To escape the shrapnel of 
The shooter’s shells and mortars
A disillusioned almajiri is planting
Local explosives in a church
Somewhere in Borno.

My bedroom receives
Fresh percolation of sun rays
Early morning sun rays

It reminds me
How we used to sing do re mi
A female deer
A drop of golden sun
A name I call myself.

But where have they all gone?
The songs
Where have they gone?

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

The Essence of Man

The cockcrow again
To break a new day.
The way a chick 
Breaks forth from
A newly hatched egg.

Life is the Morningstar
That shines forever.
The same river 
That went this way now
Will soon be returning
To go the other way.

Life is a song
We already know.

Man is the song
We shall learn 
And unlearn forever.
Man is the slippery catfish
You cannot freely grip.

Man bites like a wolf
And sting like a bee.
His heart is no more
In his left or right breast.
It is probably in-between
His thighs now.

And so we go on
In life trying
To marry it to man.

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

Laughing

Sprawled on my soft leather sofa
One Sunday after church service
Reading Okara’s “Spirit of the Wind”
And my infant son is sleeping nearby:
He would never leave me alone.
I couldn’t tell whether I was reading
Because he was asleep or
He was asleep because I was reading.
But from the wind came the laughter of my
Neighbour’s kids
From over at the garden
Where they gather to play
And the wind keeps blowing.
Oh how they laugh such laughable laughter.
Freely they laugh hysterically, sillily
As if their lives depended on it.
Their high pitched chattering
Their piercing shouts
Twittering trough to my juvenile repertoires
Exhuming them from the cemetery of memory
To haunt my childhood chronicles.

This was me again
Laughing crazily in the garden
And on my sofa
He is up from his siesta, my son
He sees my laughing quietly,
He joins me.

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

If I Were a Painter

If really I were a gifted painter
And as it were, I was to paint a man
I’d get my draw board, brush, paint and water
I’d work as open mindedly as I can
To bring out the true image of the soul
God created at the very beginning.
I would produce a man strong, bold and whole
One that’d be in his image and liking.
I won’t paint the fragile man with briefcase
In three piece suit with bible and tie.
I would paint a hunter with open face
Returning home from the toil of the night.
-He looks savage hunting for hares and harts
-Yet he’s truly the soul after His heart.

Details | Divine Friday Idiong Poem

Walking Shadows

I am but a
Walking shadow.
When I hurt
You don’t feel it.

We are but 
Walking shadows
When I talk to you
You don’t hear me.