Dirge Poems
Had he known...
by Graham Ereks
It was very early in the morning,
I can recall, not without mourning.
The roads were soaked; the cloud pregnant--
The gnats in all facades, the water was stagnant.
Full of ecstasy, he descended from the bed,
No doubt the night before he was well-fed.
How full of life he always was, not until then;
He was ravaged like a prey in a lion's den.
Had he known, He'd have have been stationary,
......
A Drunkard's Tears
by Graham Ereks
Half-clad I pittled in the grown-old day,
Body boozed by a gazillion boozes.
I sauntered hither and thither zigzag
My destination I knew not, for my vision
Had been boozed and boozed.
I sauntered scalarly gibbering to my booze;
Oh what a feeling it was!
I came by a canis manacled and together we
Confabulated heart-to-heart.
......
Mama's Son
by Graham Ereks
'I'll be back soonest', he said to mama blithely,
Nescient of the state's cannibalistic hostility.
How can mama take this inhumanity likely?
Tear-drops every day, thanks to brutality.
Bloodthirsty men-in-black, liveried omnipresent
Ambassadors of anarchy, never at all decent.
Haranguers of licitness, promoters of inequity,
Vampires they are,for they are an insignia of nonentity.
......
George
by Olorunleke Olorode
George, I leaped for joy
When the news of your arrival broke
The height of the happiness
I can't explain
That "tiwon ban gesin ninumi kolekose"
Same with your mother
In the past was vitro fat professed
Yet you came unannounced
Making joy overshadow our hearts
......
A Dirge
by Thomas Merton
Some one who hears the bugle neigh will know
How cold it is when sentries die by starlight.
But none who love to hear the hammering drum
Will look, when the betrayer
Laughs in the desert like a broken monument,
Ringing his tongue in the red bell of his head,
Gesturing like a flag.
The air that quivered after the earthquake
......
Behind the Sun
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
The faces of the tom-toms were sallow,
So was the face of the sun, dark-visaged,
Red, and starved through a pogrom
That assaulted the peace of the beasts.
Darkness spelt the names of diseases,
Each pronounced through stiffened tongues,
Whited by the scourge of hate – a common
Figure, cadaverous and laconic, but incestuous.
......
George
by Olorunleke Olorode
George, I leaped for joy
When the news of your arrival broke
The height of the happiness
I can't explain
That "tiwon ban gesin ninumi kolekose"
Same with your mother
In the past was vitro fat professed
Yet you came unannounced
Making joy overshadow our hearts
......
Elegy for November
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
The shoals below the horrid caverns of a lagoon
usurp all terraces and embankments,
just for the feast on bloodꓽ
crimson atoll
and cremated corals.
Ecclesiastes of the third age is unknown to them —
they who in all seasons,
without respite,
have feasted in flesh and blood,
including that of a famous guru
......
Had he known...
by Graham Ereks
It was very early in the morning,
I can recall, not without mourning.
The roads were soaked; the cloud pregnant--
The gnats in all facades, the water was stagnant.
Full of ecstasy, he descended from the bed,
No doubt the night before he was well-fed.
How full of life he always was, not until then;
He was ravaged like a prey in a lion's den.
Had he known, He'd have have been stationary,
......
Mama's Son
by Graham Ereks
'I'll be back soonest', he said to mama blithely,
Nescient of the state's cannibalistic hostility.
How can mama take this inhumanity likely?
Tear-drops every day, thanks to brutality.
Bloodthirsty men-in-black, liveried omnipresent
Ambassadors of anarchy, never at all decent.
Haranguers of licitness, promoters of inequity,
Vampires they are,for they are an insignia of nonentity.
......
