Tuesday Poem by Oloyede Michael

I sat on the width of a tree,
read pages of poetic letters
in a quest for an acquisition spree.


On several burning notes, we agree.
Poetry is a pear tree, pick rhymes for free.
Our clothed nakedness we lucidly see:
The nakedness of nothingness,
The nothingness of existence,
our persisting existence.


I chewed one-tenth of sane tenses
interpreting the essence of joyless sentences,
I bit the fruit of ethereal depth on the poet-tree.
I marked oxymoron on my speech tree,
antithesis, I chew for a gift.
My pulse less understood by morons,
the voice of sarcasm became clarion.


The axe of pain is oxy,
The hook of forgiveness is moron.
I sat on the trunk of pun,
It lubes my buttocks with fun.


I swung and caught the branch of paradox,
on the poet-tree; wisdom and I had tea,
knowledge obliged me,
understanding took me fishing.
I sketched the mural of these three literary life guards on a baobab tree,
I scribbled the ode of these three on a poet tree.

Tuesday Poem by ‘Biyi Olusolape

Not this time, I shan’t say goodbye
For E.I

These are the very shivers that spread me thin –
the very shivers that spread within
and through
me
even to the tingling hollowness in my bones –
between the first hello
and the lost l-o-l that consecrates your departure,
for these are all the ways in which your leaving
for a purpose
may distort living
for a purpose,
which purpose is you (not a question
nor a threat
but all of a full promise).

Tuesday Poem by Dzekashu MacViban

Second Coming

There is a coup d‘état
New persons impose themselves to-night
And take into their hands— the Power—
To wreck the ship-of-state,
Give a dog a bad name, then hang it.
Thy throne‘s thy grave…
A young snake kills its mother
Yet, it ain‘t different
Déjà vu, I‘d say
As a dishonest saint replaces another
Is this our fate until the Second Coming?

______
This poem was taken from Scions of Malcontent (Miraclaire, 2011)