DEFYING GRAVITY by ‘Bukola Ibirogba

DEFYING GRAVITY by ‘Bukola Ibirogba

DEFYING GRAVITY

We fall on our faces,

Time and time again,

Those moments when we fall in great places,

And bow our heads in pain,

From deep inside our hearts,

We begin to learn to find

Will; to strengthen our weakest parts,

Energy to enlarge the mind,

To see the possibility in impossibility,

And perceive the plain behind the mountain,

Conceive from the rain, the fountain,

We learn to rise from the rubble,

Heads high, shoulders straightened,

In spite of all the heavy trouble,

We begin to feel our senses heightened.


Photo credit: www.madewithawesome.com

Photo credit: www.madewithawesome.com


When we finally conceive positivity in negativity,

And clearly see the possibility in impossibility,

There we find strength to rise.

Time and time again,

With a step begins the journey of a thousand miles,

Our heads no longer bowed in pain,

We boldly walk out of our hiding places,

And finally freed from the broken pieces,

We realize that tomorrow never comes backward,

The only way is forward.

Walking the path to discovery,

Basking under the sun of recovery,

Moving from negativity to positivity,

Refusing to be held down in mediocrity.


KD poem plate 26


We rise, we stand, we trudge on,

We smile, we laugh, our fears gone,

The poison becomes the remedy.

That moment is when we begin defying gravity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
‘Bukola Ibirogba is a student of the Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan. She draws inspiration for her poetry from her love for God and everyday issues.
WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN by Vihasi Shah

WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN by Vihasi Shah

WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN

It’s all right
when a man loves a woman

Love becomes easy
when a man loves a woman

It’s all fair
when a man loves a woman

Love is in the air
when a man loves a woman

It’s all unconditional
in to the moon and back
when a man loves a woman

Love becomes hell
when a boy loves a girl
barks and fights
are days and nights
when a boy loves a girl

Photo credit: www.the anatomyoflove.com

Photo credit: www.the anatomyoflove.com


Grudges serve the dinner and
Abuses do the bed
when a boy loves a girl

Lust is levigated
violence turns a desire
when a boy loves a girl

It never happens,
when a man loves a woman

Love is question
peace is the answer
when a man loves a woman

words are not needed
when love overwhelms
Destiny can be changed
when a man loves a woman.

Love becomes easy
when a man loves a woman.
It’s all right
when a man loves a woman.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vihasi Shah is an Indian lady with vision and mission. Constant learner and human with utmost humanity who wants to spread smile on every one’s face and wants to see world as one and combined lovable artistic place to live.
Lawyer in process, company secretary, writer, anchor, teacher, and volunteer. You can have a cool sneak peak at some of my works by paying a visit to my blog -https://everlastingsmilewisdom.wordpress.com

THE GREAT DIVIDER by Chuks Obi

THE GREAT DIVIDER by Chuks Obi

THE GREAT DIVIDER


Thousands of years ago

Before we touched the world

Our fathers felt a need

That spanned beyond learning

And extended the realms of curiosity

It was a search for tenable answers

To questions that still disturb us

The theories we expounded

To attempt insoluble puzzles

Left trails of confusion

As to the river of existence


chaos-mind_00345650


The permanent lacunae

The horizonless horizon

Led us to a dilemmic juncture

To the left there was no river

On the right a sinuous stream

Some steps shunned the stream

Others plunged into its intricacies

In the bid to unveil its mysteries

There arose the Great Divider

Like a flashlight of diverse rays

She seemed to clear all doubts


KD poem plate 22

 

 


We then called her “religion”

The endless ladder to God

One could say she was harmless

She had always been

Till the day of her exaltation

When we sacrificed our brethren

On the altars of our differences

Forgetting the essence of humanity

Is in living and dying for each other

And to all worshippers is one river

Enjoyed through diverse lenses

 


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chuks Obi is a law student at the University of Ibadan. He has written poems and articles which have been published in magazines and anthologies, both online and in print. His poems fulfill a duty to humanity; soothing wounds with the wonders of words.

SEPIA by Oyin Oludipe

SEPIA by Oyin Oludipe

SEPIA

Journeying through Abeokuta one morning, a fleet of motorists sped out of the jam and soaked the air in reckless dust. An hour later, I came across a suicide scene: a silent woman wavering on the bridge.


A dawn of dim feathers; the road spat

Loud, a new mist of robot chaos

Where limbs were groves of lust, rouse

Beneath throngs of screech and curse

A faint dark in the wind, not voice-froths

Whom the morning had made all one with the soft

Receding shadow, stale shafts of night

 


 

The highway split is rounded by dwarfs, double-tiered

And strange procession on the flick of time

Offers a brown-rimed brew—of a lone sheath freed

From presences nocturnal, brown-eyed, brows brown

Shaped by the saddened hour. The light awaited harvest

Of the winding breeds when air was brown,

Brown as furrowed bricklayer beard shrivelled off

The brown-wings of the sun

 


 

Brown season it was—nostril

Draws breath in dew-wet ash, eternal to the soul…

Eternal to me comes the brush of feet

In sweet sprint of gore-shone death,

 


Sepia Photo credit - Pelumi Kayode

Sepia
Photo credit – Pelumi Kayode


But it arose—

A strange image, when yet I saw

Sudden form at the haze

Of death’s brown consul, slouched

Despair of moth-plagued fur at embrace

Of the lingering guardian trough, silent as the world

 


 

And in that moment broke her tear of libation,

The brown suds of her heart. A racing cloud
Sunk her chin, for death she had known

First reaper of the dust to time’s scorn,

Pale-eyed of the blurry dome… yet such

Startled pause at the hem she knew


Now the trench teems with grief,

Joyful rite from the vicious deep

Brown was I, then, witness though

I spied the world through her eyes,

A human will indifferent to the hour’s passion

Shrunk in my ears, rose rueful

The imprecations of all humanity…


 

Woman, you must stretch out

Like the sky. And shred your soul

Against the brown belly of the morning river

Postscript: a poem which illustrates the tragic and fragile paradox of human survival in the spectacle of a suicide scene.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Oyin Oludipe lives and writes in Nigeria. He is the recipient of the 2013 WRR Poetry Beacon Prize. His poetry, essays, and reviews have been featured or are forthcoming in Radar Poetry Journal, The Guardian, Afrikana.ng, Africanwriter.com, Arts and Africa, Akewi Arts House,  The Provo Canyon Review, The Bombay Review, Image Magazine of the University of Ibadan, and others. In 2015, he was a judge for the Green Author Prize, a literary award for young unpublished poets in Nigeria.
RECAPITULATION by Wisdom Uledi

RECAPITULATION by Wisdom Uledi

Recapitulation
There is no place for you
in the future
You won the past
and as you struggle with the present
to re-captivate my mind
For certain, you’ve come to your fall
Never will I think of you again

I looked into your eyes, yesterday
All I saw in them was pain
Looking in the other direction, you hoped
would carry away your regret
in driving away your soulmate
Remember, I were the dream you dreamt
The ecstasy that will never evaporate

Why did you do it, girl
Under which circumstance or spell
did you let me go, girl
Look at where you are, now
Together we would have been further, sure

Optimized-broken relationship

Source: www.archetypes.com


The girl responds…
Who do you really think you are
You and I couldn’t have gone far
we had lost all sense of direction
and were destined to crush into a hard waterfall
I jumped out of the “relation” ship
and used a boat to escape
It’s about time, you did the same

I felt pain that was true
But it was not for my soul
It was for you…. You seem sad
Why did you mess us up
I prayed yesterday to the heavens
to grant me the grace to forgive you
For it is apparent you are damaged
I was the only girl you could have managed.

KD poem plate 11

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wisdom Henry Magomero Uledi Studied Law at Staff Development Institute in Blantyre, Malawi. He is now The Publicity Secretary For The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Youth Urban Ministry (CCAPYUM) resident in Malawi’s Capital, Lilongwe. The Spoken Word Poet is sobriqueted as “The God Centered Poet” For His recitals do the linking of souls by bringing them to Christ,in heavens wing.
NIGERIA, HOW FAR? by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola

NIGERIA, HOW FAR? by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola

NIGERIA, HOW FAR?

Nigeria, when did your beauty,

Doused in rarity and clement grace,

A feast to the captured eyes of suitors,

A muse to the enthused voices of minstrels,

Become the protagonist of tales told

About remnants in the bowels of yesterday?


Source: www.bellanaija.com

Source: www.bellanaija.com


How did your wild flames of fame,

That burned through the ears of the wind,

Across the silent oceans and restless hills,

Encapsulating the world in feverish awe,

Get quenched by the waters of corruption

Within the infant years of your freedom?


How did your foreseen blinding future,

A halo of distinguishing lights,

With the songs of angels in your eyes

Heralding a glorious tomorrow,

Turn to a perilous reality of gloom

And the plight of a defeated old hag?


I am the child of the night

Borne of the darkness of your bosom,

I am the cry of the earth

Bleeding out shrieks of your damning sins,

I am the crying child, probing, asking,

“Nigeria, how far?”


KD poem plate 5 (1)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
Kanyinsola Olorunnisola is a bibliophile who believes in the power of literature as a burning sword to tear through the curtains of darkness which becloud the society.  He has been published on several sites and anthologies. He has had the priviledge of clinching a few literary awards in his quest to influence the world through the might of his pen. He is the brain behind the SPRINNG Literary Movement.

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