Community Poems
The Dream Patrol
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Willie Winkie lived in a land of magic, in the region called Butterfly Haven;
For Willie was a diminutive elf, like the violet blossoms, of purple fixation.
Willie and his beloved wife, Elvira, lived highly organized, pleasant lives;
For magic impels ways and customs to differ, like buds, as spring arrives.
Everyone called Willie Winkie, 'Wee,' since most elves were notably bigger;
But, he was Director of Dreams, scattering joys of plum night, with vigor.
Violence was completely unheard of, inside their peace loving community,
......
The Wrong Train
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
London fog, harshly early with strained warning,
Looms all over the image of the hectic city
There’s the smell of mists and the taste of
Frozen rain gathered before dawn.
Pulses brake and start,
And lungs are besieged by distilled grime,
Industrial tainting.
I can’t see well beyond five feet ahead of me
As I labour to walk,
But headlamps from crawling cars and buses
......
Moonlight
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
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
......
99. In My Perfect World
by Kea Campbell
In a perfect world, you and I could saunter— free.
Breathing fresh, salt-licked air.
Where the ocean reaches for our feet, and the sun melts into the sea, and the sky drapes over its long lost twin.
Where the forest and the sky and the land love humanity dearly, like a neighborhood that could thrive for eternity.
In a perfect world, there would be no bicker of capitalists and environmentalists— merely political empathy.
I dream of boring news channels.
When red, white, and blue don't seem so embarrassing, nor disgraceful to half of the country, and "liberty and justice for all" hugs "all" comfortably.
When the government is wed to candor bound by the promise of life and liberty, and diplomacy relieves, and monopolies fancy consumers' well-being.
......
Festival
by Ken Ripley
Festivals can be lots of fun,
Especially when they are new
And what is offered nicely run.
Games, exhibits, and parades
And music by the score, all
Compete with booths of food,
The kind you see in fairs in fall:
Funnel cakes and turkey legs abound.
Visitors are drawn to streets
......
African Night
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Mother of stars,
friend of the moon,
it is often quiet but for its own heartbeatꓽ
the rhythmic sentence pronounced
in one benign-hammering syllable,
which pounds away hostile darkness
laid bare by the wakeful heavens
whose ears listen to tales from
old folks passed on to a glowing age,
and proverbs that leave one and all in awe.
......
Night Watch (for Rembrandt)
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
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
......
Trafalgar Square
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
I detest a late appointment, be it love or business,
on the breath of the Trafalgar,
and with Nelson peering down at such looseness
on the revered Square, teeming with man and pigeons.
Imagine being on surveillance from such dizzying height!
Give me a break and come early,
Before Big Ben, the lone cockerel of London,
Crows with that huge metallic tone,
Ushering in dawn and her smiling, smouldering light.
Meet me at the Trafalgar with a bouquet of flowers
......
99. In My Perfect World
by Kea Campbell
In a perfect world, you and I could saunter— free.
Breathing fresh, salt-licked air.
Where the ocean reaches for our feet, and the sun melts into the sea, and the sky drapes over its long lost twin.
Where the forest and the sky and the land love humanity dearly, like a neighborhood that could thrive for eternity.
In a perfect world, there would be no bicker of capitalists and environmentalists— merely political empathy.
I dream of boring news channels.
When red, white, and blue don't seem so embarrassing, nor disgraceful to half of the country, and "liberty and justice for all" hugs "all" comfortably.
When the government is wed to candor bound by the promise of life and liberty, and diplomacy relieves, and monopolies fancy consumers' well-being.
......
The Bridge
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
We call her Oma.
She’s a simple, old, haggard wooden bridge
In my neighbourhood,
On the shaved navel of the forest, heavy and solemn,
With the colour of an aged, wizened python,
Spotted here and there and striped there and then.
So ramshackle, but friendly, cosy to the naked feet,
With that royal smell of wood-cellar combined with
The health of ancient wine.
Nothing more . . . .
......
