Fear has become my companion

Fear has become my companion
Reaching out from the depth of my guts
Taking bites of my heart, beat by beat

Fear has become my companion
Wringing out the last pellets of welcome
Reluctantly from gates, fences and bullet proofing

Fear has become my companion
Keeping my stories from the communal fire
Baring laughter from devotees at the shrine

Fear has become my companion
Trudging behind every bank collapse
Behind every saving lost to sharper suits

Fear has become my companion
Staring out from each checkpoint eyes
Eyes that have seen death in napkins

Fear has become my companion
Friends, foes and in between share my fate
Bombs are wrapped in swathing clothes

Fear has become my companion.

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I am poetry

I am poetry


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This life my friend is not poetry

This world my friend is not poetry.
You don't have to tell me
The words have lost their luster
Like scabs on old wounds
Flakes of expensive paint
Hanging on crumbling nations

This is not poetry you say
Not a soaring epic of gods and battles
Or magic, witches and fairies
No monsters no goblins no spirit children no deities
The battle is done and the battlefield
marvels at the stupidity of it all
This epic is silent

This is no poetry
Of course not.
What worlds do you wish into being
What words do you weave now?
The incantations evoke only cold dreams
The ancestors do not hear the repetitions of the divining marbles
Sango o. Amadioha o.
Seek no contrivance of rhythm or candence
The fires that made them split hills are long gone

This is not poetry
But how can it be?
The song has left the singer
Who is to ask why?
The river is dry and the fish are dead
The grass is burnt and the plain is dead
Which song do you seek?
A dirge of the crocodiles beside the dying river
Or The cry of the elephant at the death of another bull

This life my friend is not poetry.

No wail of love lost and forgotten
No Romeo spewing his guts beside a castle bound lass
Romance is bewildered, waking up with new hangovers in strange beds
Love has left their hearts
And now bombs are strapped on doves, wives and children
The embrace is tighter and so are the daggers

This is not poetry
And there is no poetry to spout
No rhythm to wind up passions
Piercing hearts and clouding reason
Sending men to die for nought
Brave men leaving their wives for the cowards to inherit
Brave hearts pulping pity and charity for deities that will promise and fail
Yes, this is no poetry

My friend, this is not poetry.
The poets have lied and died
Their words are stuck halfway from life and from death
Their bones are left for the vultures
The vultures have lost their feathers and the desert is dry
Who will sing the dirge now the tambourine is broke
Whose drums will wake up the spirits
Which incantation shall follow the libation?
Who will return the message to the gods?

This world my friend is not poetry


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