Imagine! Pandemic cost

Imagine we had been warned on time when this pandemic first emerged. While the country of origin prevented people from boarding and arriving. We won’t be where we are.

Imagine if airport and cruise ships have been more forth coming than business as usual, boarding and disembarking as they please, many people wouldn’t have died on cruise ship, let alone carrying it with them.

Imagine if the various port have been sealed off on time and hard quarantine introduced from the onset-for travelers, medics employed to manage port of entry and assist those in quarantine, a lot more could have been foreseen but were not.

Imagine if China had been cutoff like Liberia and other West African states way back then-epicenter of Ebola, just to save life’s of those who today are part of a statistics. Forget prejudice but basic fact of life. For every Life matters too.

Imagine till there is nothing more to think about. But as we sit in various lockdown-hard or soft, quarantine, distance, sanitize, hear it to save life. Don’t forget, the king of Pop once wore a mask. 2020 could just be an imagination, yet real. Never dreamt of it like this, reality is, just do your best. 

Morgan Brown

Is it Spring Yet?

A leap into something new. Is it spring yet? For I see flowers blooming, highlighting newness again. Is it spring yet? The last one didn’t end well where it started. Gadafi left and his people felt nothing but bitterness of winter, the desire for spring came with pain, nothing new from a wishlist. Promise vanish like thin air, with explosive greeting, as morning dew. Look at Syria, talk-less of Egypt, for Algeria may have been spared hash realities of coming winter when wishes were for spring. Europe felt the spring, from Spain to Scandinavia, spring of migration but she shrugged it off. Now it’s headed to the USA, but winter is not over or it spring yet? Would she survive yellow vest track, coming and going, a surge spared by the winter of pandemic. Would this turn out like a Hong Kong plague eaten off by one country two system in pandemic time. Is it spring yet? For the death of Mr Floyd seems to have brought spring closer than we imagined in the middle but surely not end of a winter. 

Celestine Chidi

Gamers in Musical Chair

Who plays such music that these chimps dance to? In such cacophonous sounds, hiding behind with their bellies protruding. Hissing to music like snakes would do with split spitting tongues. Do they know what they are doing? Someone should get a mask or we may all be infected. They are not speaking in tongues of course... I hold my breath for this. For large potbellies stand between their head, and the lower part of what is left to be called a body. Their stomach acting better than their brain. Sorry Sir, I didn’t mean to say what I saw. The oozes from their month, hmmm! You can’t wait to wash with clean clothes.

Who handed the baton to those mopping fools? Standing up in lazy forms, disgusting with your fake smiles. Waving goodbye while the office files burns. Of course, what will it benefit them for the fireman to use his hose. For they have signed us off again, to the dungeon of death-rows. Whilst the paper trails goes down in flame, alleluia kumbaya is their chorus choice. For their masters word leads them to nodding frenzy- tokay gecko. Your symphonous sound of loot is from a poor widows shelf. Shame on you, Zombies of the upper house. 

Oh! Who did this to you? Indiana Jones stole all the gold, the skulls, robbing even barebones of the dead, but you, you had to  more and plus, even starving kiddies, malnourished in their mother’s womb have not been spared. See them drive off in posh cars to the gratitude of their soul. Don’t you have conscience to turn to? Must you loose even the qualms of it.

Why should I care? My pen is all I have got. Zombies of yes chamber, Feel for the ones who sent you there, for those attires have long lost the appeals of new found state. Everyday feels the same here, hyenas from the same breed, roaming this weird wide west like nothing to offer. Seeking only to devour than to spare.

UnFolding Metamorphosis

The reality of life has changed. What we use to take for granted now counts. Six feet! Words filled and formed in-transition to the other side. Now it is a living testament by distant empathy taken in every day encounter. 

Life is not what it used to be. We move around looking at each other as though, could be the one, making the six feet both a lived and after thought. Viruses spewed in ignorance. 

Fear has taken its toll on us, yet distancing makes the sorrow go round. Care and fear, life and death. None could stand to be compared. For what we took for granted now matters, never did we think it may come to this. Herein we are and there it is. Life that roared has turn to whispers.

What is life if all that beholds it is but fear. Everywhere you look, the sting of death comforts itself, for the dead die...alone and buried by strangers while their love ones shelter, yes shelter for they might be next in line, not of inheritance. The brut of death hangs just around and not too far. 

Would the courage of man by fear be ruined? For death was there before man can be. Death, the manifestation of the still unknown. For man by nature, a mortal being and life shall not cease nor ruined by fear. The living man is not dead yet, six feet is but, however it maybe, a reflection of reality in this sojourn. The body maybe weak but the spirit, yes the spirit must remain strong for what may still to come. Show love though from a distant, let the breathe of life saturate the poisonous clouds soaked in this death. 

Mother Nature at her best again. Still, the comforting hug of departed robe in console be, to fill the emptiness from deep within. May the whispers of the priest, the final touch to a dying soul keep heavens door open. Therein lay, the constant contact that make the world round. Hope better life is revealed after all this said and gone.

My Africa

The beautiful faces of my people smile.

For your land is unconquerable.

They may have mocked your life’s,

but all depends on how you now respond.

Can I be left alone to live my life,

For all I do is never gonna be good enough.

Enough of taking me for granted,

for I am as you are too.

Our fathers were mocked long before,

they threw away all they had and followed.

Followed to a land where they knew nothing,

nothing to change for but left abandoned.

If you think democracy was your invention,

Look at how my fathers lived their lives.

They managed to hold down what they could, 

yes not all were good but, to threw all away?

Can I be left to eat the way I choose,

without being told to use your fork and knife, 

let me wash my hand and feed on my ebab,

such culture belongs to me respect it I say.

We have long been deceived for far too long,

as though we amount to nothingness.

But you hauled our men and women then,

to your land as beast of something else.

My Africa rejoice for you are really great.

Look in your morning mirror and smile again,

for no one can quantify you by their word,

Our ancestors surely would want you to be.

I have asked God this very one question,

Could my ancestors all be hauled to hell?

As I sleep so I await His response,

for if God can’t judge then no one should.

My Africa rejoice!

Join hands and rejoice!

You are great people rejoice,

for in your joy, you can do wonders.

Yes your joy were all taken away then,

you can’t mourn forever of their ills.

It is time you look back and take your pride, 

Our ancestral warriors conquered their lands. 

They planted the land of their oppressors,

fed their greed with own life and sweat.

Never were they paid for those injustices,

in greatness remains mocked of today. 

Let not their words define you,

for none knows your real worth but you.

But kept in the innermost of your mind,

goad you to your true glorious height.

Boats Then and Now!

Then and now boat were used

our father's gulled of kith and kin.

Whilst on line walked in chains, 

traveling through these brutal seas

In faraway land abused and used.

Silence please!

        

Boats were used then and now,

destitute mindless slaves so rumbles

alleluia chorus to their masters hymns.

So it goes, matters of the mind,

of such minds though opposed in consent,

as we sieve through history books.

        

Still, boats are used so we know,

inhumane act of fellow being.

Whilst they travelled through these sea,

Scattered tombs yet no soldiers name.

objects of their captors wish,

'Do as told or else be doomed'.

        

Whilst we speak, boats are used,

viewing deaths on these treacherous sea.

New masters baton betting rides,

such altered being impaired at heart.

Ploughing souls for sole goals gain

vanities of the brazen rich.

        

Boats adorns on trophies look;

signed to humiliate our fathers worth,

as their kids sojourns to unending quest.

Trapped in cages sold with tags,

of a dreams no greener than home,

Repeated history of servitude.

        

Boats were used these sea tells,

Objects possessed from nothingness.

Strangers to places shaped of bloods,

strength through thy own sweats.

Unwelcome in these far away lands

Awaiting a worth that never comes.

        

Mothers dreams of own child embrace,

yet perils of boats we all recounts,

many souls have gone...on sea,

how many more souls should still be lost?

slaves of promised “milk and honey”,

Forgetful of tales on thee old boats.

        

While it began from boats on sea

scriptures whites on own free ride.

hidden swords away from thy sights

flashed their cultured book inward they went,

for our land we’ve all but lost,

Woof! Whilst Gold and Silver left our shores.

Boats with souls, silence! ...minute pass.

To our leaders, please bow thou Heads,

for own shame, our mothers weep.

Could sweet dreams be made of rouge seas?

For the ikolo has to sound! Lest we forget

Ought in this future we pause. 

 

#migrantsonsea. Remembering the souls that were and continues to be lost on the seas in search of greener pastures across the Atlantic on this Poetry day. 

The Sower and then, the Reaper.

Season comes and season goes

Planted seeds has got to grow.

The sower bestrews of her seeds

Patiently courting the harvest time

        

Everyday she attends to her farm,

Keeping watch whilst counting time

The rule books close to her chest:

sower must reap what she sows-rich harvest.

        

Dead was the middle of all night,

A sole reaper appears unaware.

Grabbing much to his delights,

great is the harvest of dew time.

        

For the sower sows to reap but none,

but the reaper takes all that was sown.

Although the harvest was so rich,

Yet the sower was nowhere near nor found

Imagined Freedom

Invisible chains in freedom park

for it is so as we can see.

For lack of knowledge burdens 

as we search freedom ever we can.

Can freedom shines  through non consent?

for what we know we knew no more

freedom isn't what is said to be.

Invisible chains in freedom park,

for more we seek less we see.

No one ever says freedom wasn’t free!

yet non can speak of these in freedom park.

Now, what's ahead we can’t defined

for as we walk so does the park.

No less can freedom ever be spoken nor felt

Rumor has it the park is moved.

could freedom also move like that?

As leads are on the high rise,

so would we ever know how far it’s gone?

Roots and route all points to thee we own

Freedom root is right in us they say!

Maybe it is with the other sides

to know is our achilles hills for,

If we admit, lest be shamed of freedom park

For once lost we seek of thee

But could freedom just be gone like that?

Alone in speeches thy greatness tales

as we sit right in this park seeking freedom.