by KREATIVE DIADEM | Aug 29, 2015 | POEMS
DRUMS, DRUMS…
Drums, drums,
Play drums not violins,
Play drums not keys,
They asked me to play drums…
And I started playing drums
Though I grew up amid violins and keys,
Though I used to dance around cement trees…
Drums, drums,
Play drums they shouted
If you want our ears to listen,
And our very eyes to see,
And our fat hands to give…
And I started playing drums
Though I grew up with pride and will…
Drums, drums… I played
From dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn,
Drums… I played like I never thought
The soft and silky hands of mine would ever do,
Drums, drums… I played
So that the future from its coming centuries
Could remember the cradle of the spring
Climbing the mountain restlessly…
Drums, drums… I played
Until my hands became strong enough
To fight elephants and hippos…
Drums… I played
Until I forgot the sweetness of violins…
Drums… I played
Until I lost my keys…
The African drummer and his drum!
Drums… I played,
Oh Lord! Drums… I played
Not so passionately that I could close my eyes,
But so blindly that I would shut my eyes!
And shut my ears!
Drums… I played,
And drums shut my whole life!
Drums, drums,
Play drums not violins,
Play drums not keys,
They asked me to play drums,
And I started playing drums…
But they weren’t listening,
They weren’t looking at me,
They weren’t even there!
I realized when I opened wide my eyes
That I was all alone,
Half naked in the midst of the bush!
Drums, drums… I played
So much that my water ran dry,
And the winds and the times
Had drawn deep lines in my face…
There I was rooted in the past,
While they were relishing a stainless future!
Drums… I played,
Yes I played like a fool!
While they were giving their own sons
Violins and keys of the purest air…
Here I am… seeking the way to their songs
As the bush is covering and drowning me
Like a mere drop in the hidden river of a forsaken place…
Drums, drums… I played
For they said so.
RAY NDEBI
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
My name is Théodore René Ndebi, born in Cameroon. I graduated in Banking Management. But what really makes me proud and happy is WRITING !!!!! I started writing around 1990. I write the most I can.
I mostly write for children’s future. As a child, I had always dreamt of a world where poor children and orphans could be happy as well. I have many unpublished collections in French: Chaque Jour Un Poème, Rêve D’un Soir, La Missive Du Petit Prince, Suis-Je Assez Bien Pour Toi… I’m also author of unpublished novels in French (Cierge Noir, Plus Violent Que L’amour, Les Fruits De La Tempête…). My first published novel; THE LAST GHOST/Son Of Struggle got published in 2013 by AuthorhouseUK; it appears in the LOS Angeles Times Festival Of Books Catalogue 2014 Page 8. Available online @ Amazon, Kindle, AuthorhouseUK, Barnes & Noble, Indie. I wrote numerous award winning texts. I am a Book Reviewer and Translator. I am a member of OneAfricanChild since 2013 and Co-Founder of Le Salon Du Livre Yaounde-Cameroon. You can check my works on: authorrayndebi.wordpress.com.Ray Ndebi on Facebook, @RTNdebi on Twitter, Facebook Page My Soul & Mon Ame.
by KREATIVE DIADEM | Aug 27, 2015 | POEMS
♠A VOID SONG♠
“Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover,
everyone becomes a poet” – Plato
Void song!
Karima,
Mine, is a supplication of wordless rhymes
Nurtured by loneliness and the warmth
Of straying thoughts
Can I wait any further?
On this interminable road of endless love
The emissaries of bashful beams
Have refused to bring the message of peace
And my helpless heart continues to host
The banquet for ranging wars.
Now, I sit at the slopping edge of a bated breath
Flipping through the pages of a hacked off memory
Searching for a song
Searching for the calming chorus of your words.
My path is deserted tonight,
No traces of a wayfarer lurking behind the trees
No footsteps to drum of yesterdays
Yesterdays’ haunting memories of cuddlesome games.
This night is silent
Singing the songs of loneliness
And I follow suit
Singing for the dawn.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Oredola Ibrahim, the winner of Inspiring Brilliance Foundation
National Poetry Award 2012, believes in poetry as a tool for self
discovery and ultimately, a potential tool for national transformation. His poetry delves into popular themes like politics, love and inspiration. Oredola Ibrahim is the convener of WhatsApp Poetry Contest, a periodic competition organized on the platform of “The Penclan Initiative” (www.penclan.com). He is a campus journalist, a student-entrepreneur and a web designer. He’s currently a student of the University of Ibadan. He tweets @platolaw and can be reached via asiaquad@gmail.com.
by KREATIVE DIADEM | Aug 24, 2015 | POEMS
BLACK I AM
Black I am, and proud to be one,
Happy to call Brother each man;
For this world is one sweet village,
Though the strong arms of a cruel age,
An age of fear and death,
Squeeze it to let it out of breath,
Breaking down the wings of freedom,
Setting up the tyrant’s kingdom.
Black I am
Source: www.attatravel.com
Black I am, Black from Africa,
Fed with damsons and cassava,
My skin is made from an oak tree’s,
My words are deep like the blue seas,
I love you wherever you’re from…
Whatever your hurt in this storm,
I know plants that can get you healed,
I have for you a better meal.
Black I am, for I was born Black,
I could have been Red, Yellow, White,
I could have been from your Mother,
But I’m Black, Black from my Mother,
Take my hand inside of your heart
And follow the path to the start,
It’s the way to milk and honey,
The way back to our Family.
RAY NDEBI
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
My name is Théodore René Ndebi, born in Cameroon. I graduated in Banking Management. But what really makes me proud and happy is WRITING !!!!! I started writing around 1990. I write the most I can.
I mostly write for children’s future. As a child, I had always dreamt of a world where poor children and orphans could be happy as well. I have many unpublished collections in French: Chaque Jour Un Poème, Rêve D’un Soir, La Missive Du Petit Prince, Suis-Je Assez Bien Pour Toi… I’m also author of unpublished novels in French (Cierge Noir, Plus Violent Que L’amour, Les Fruits De La Tempête…). My first published novel; THE LAST GHOST/Son Of Struggle got published in 2013 by AuthorhouseUK; it appears in the LOS Angeles Times Festival Of Books Catalogue 2014 Page 8. Available online @ Amazon, Kindle, AuthorhouseUK, Barnes & Noble, Indie. I wrote numerous award winning texts. I am a Book Reviewer and Translator. I am a member of OneAfricanChild since 2013 and Co-Founder of Le Salon Du Livre Yaounde-Cameroon. You can check my works on: authorrayndebi.wordpress.com.Ray Ndebi on Facebook, @RTNdebi on Twitter, Facebook Page My Soul & Mon Ame.
You need to be a part of this great initiative, Watch out!
by KREATIVE DIADEM | Aug 22, 2015 | POEMS
LOST IN LUST
If my soul rests upon this lustful feminine
Don’t mourn dear family
I have found a place so comfortable
It renders earth incomparable
I am lost in lust
soaked in dust, bathed with rust
Ah! This place is like eternity!
Pure, sacred, I think one of the angel’s commodity
Allow me, maybe once, twice or more
Pure me, not with diluted massage but raw
I would not do it again!
Arabinrin, ero mi ni ko koko ordain
Be careful of the zone for the lost – lust!
I am lost in words
Long for lust
Ouch! This place is like eternity
Pure, sacred, I think one of the angels commodity
Don’t you know how I feel?
Wanting, horny…rubbish, don’t you know you can kill?
I’ve learnt of Carolina
But your body tortured me like Hausa bilala
This feminine must be poikilothermic
Wet! Now! As if she contacted a chronic epidermic
She seems to be heterotrophic
My body she lives as if she’s saprophytic
Inspired by a poet
(c) Seyi Omotoso, 2015.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I was born on 19th Feb. 1996. I hail from Ikire the land of Dodo, Osun state. I attended Holy Cross Catholic Primary School, Ikire. Having graduated, I was admitted to Saint Augustine’s Commercial Grammar School where I was elected as the Social prefect boy of my set. I was then one of the competitors group, a group said to be the community of the intellectuals. Having succeeded in the secondary school, I opted to study Medicine in the great citadel of knowledge; The Lagos State University, Ojo which was successful but to a different course, Physics.
by KREATIVE DIADEM | Aug 20, 2015 | INSPIRATIONALS
THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION
He got to the park, hoping he would be the last passenger just before the bus moves. Amidst shouts of different destinations by the popular ‘agberos’, he finally located the bus going his way. He likes to sit in front with the driver, but this time around, his space had been taken. Seated to his left was a plump woman with her two-year old son.
While waiting for the other passengers, an endless stream of able-bodied beggars invaded the little quietness he could afford in the old stuffy bus. They spoke different languages and recited what sounded like beggars’ sonnets which was irritating to his ears. He was tempted to advise them to go and look for jobs and it took a lot of willpower to ignore them. He couldn’t wait for the journey to begin and finally, the last passenger walked briskly into the bus.
The driver shut the doors and the passengers were left stranded in the heat while the driver and his cohorts argued about the sharing formula for the inflated transport fares they gathered from the passengers.
The road to redemption
The passengers were already getting agitated and the bus felt like an oven, taking him back in time to the stuffy chemistry lecture theatre popular called ‘oven’ during his days as an undergraduate. At long last, it was time to move. He breathed a sigh of relief and was prepared to enjoy the journey only for the driver to join the queue at a gas station about five minutes drive from the park. The mother beside him decided to buy several pieces of boiled egg from a vendor at the station and that was when he knew he wouldn’t enjoy the journey as he hated the smell of boiled egg.
As they joined other travellers on the expressway, he started to enjoy the fresh air and thought maybe the journey could be endured after all, but the woman pleaded that the breeze was too much for her son and he had to shut the window almost completely. As if that was not enough, she chose exactly that moment to bring out a loaf of bread from her bag to go with the eggs she bought.
Two hours into the journey, his clothes were stained with crumbs of bread and egg and the imprint of the child’s dirty and wet hands. The mother said ‘uncle e ma binu si omo yin o’ (meaning don’t be angry with me) and in an inappropriate attempt to dust the crumbs off his laps, she made everything worse. He began to wonder when the boy became his child.
Finally, the driver announced that he was at the last bus stop for whoever wanted to drop at the camp. He felt like he had worn the lottery, for he was finally at his destination. And as he stared across the road at the Redemption camp, he thought the journey had been worthwhile after all
THE MORALS
In the journey of life, secular or spiritual, the road might not be as sweet and smooth as expected. The beginning can be rough, the journey itself can be frustrating with distractions and inconveniences. But one thing is sure; at the end, there is a sigh of relief and the joy of arrival at the destination. Wishing you safe journey and glorious landing in life’s journey.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am Oluwaseto Oguntuase.
A Pharmacist by profession and a writer and lover of books at heart. I just love a good story. I am a bit reserved but easy to approach. I don’t have it all figured out, but who does anyway? My mantra is ‘what will be will be’ so I take life one step at a time. I love writing about real life experiences and hope to become an accomplished writer in the nearest future.
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