Truth by Princewill Webber

Liars are not believed
Even when they speak the truth;
Liars’ truth lies in lies
And their lies lies in truth.

To no one tell lies
For every utterance to reveal
For liars are not believed
Even when they speak the truth.

Truth I would always speak
Though I may be misconstrued
On the path of truth I stick
In truth I shall be vindicated.

Truth would my companion be
Through the gloomy world
Where liars are held in high esteem
And the truthful are disdained.

Truth and truth I know
Though innocents slain on its altar
On times’ shore stands so sure.

Pain of Death by Princewill Webber

Pains, pains, so painful it is
This, this pain of death,
Like the sting of a scorpion
With an excruciating pain.
I have not known any pain as thee,
So unparalleled is any to thee.

You are powerful, trekking unrestrained
Into the path you never trod
Quinine noted for efficacy to water pain’
Never efficacious yet to humble thee
Oracles were consulted to exterminate thee
Self-employed means even couldn’t extirpate
Your diabolical digits fastened on hearts.

Like a child with an inquisitive mind,
I ask – where do you dwell?
But in growl hoarse you replied
“I am here, there, and everywhere,
Like the air so universal.”

I felt dejected, fidgeting as you inflicted
Your venom to the domain of thought
Stealthily, suddenly you came and swept off
My feet into the unfathomable sea of misery
And there helplessly yearning for the life
Of your slain I stood motionless, speechless, incapacitated.

What perplexing scene unimaginable
To see the footwear, clothing and belongings
of the deceased.
You are a thief!
A thief that’s not a thief!
Had I seen you ere you came,
Then double-barrel would have triggered at you.
Had I known your coming,
Then I a watch I would have set,
Seeming to be invisible yet invisible.

What sort of world is this?
Full of misery, full of woes!
With lives shortlived,
With a gleaming, admirable face causing tears
Like a rose in the young day
Scorched by the heat of the day;
Like the rising Sun that wakes and sleeps
As it recedes from sight;
As swift as the lightening, you fade and varnish
Just in a moment made so desperate
From Genesis thou remains inexplicable
And unsearchable – thou mysterious death.

Pain of Death by Princewill Webber

Pains, pains, so painful it is
This, this pain of death,
Like the sting of a scorpion
With an excruciating pain.
I have not known any pain as thee,
So unparalleled is any to thee.

You are powerful, trekking unrestrained
Into the path you never trod
Quinine noted for efficacy to water pain’
Never efficacious yet to humble thee
Oracles were consulted to exterminate thee
Self-employed means even couldn’t extirpate
Your diabolical digits fastened on hearts.

Like a child with an inquisitive mind,
I ask – where do you dwell?
But in growl hoarse you replied
“I am here, there, and everywhere,
Like the air so universal.”

I felt dejected, fidgeting as you inflicted
Your venom to the domain of thought
Stealthily, suddenly you came and swept off
My feet into the unfathomable sea of misery
And there helplessly yearning for the life
Of your slain I stood motionless, speechless, incapacitated.

What perplexing scene unimaginable
To see the footwear, clothing and belongings
of the deceased.
You are a thief!
A thief that’s not a thief!
Had I seen you ere you came,
Then double-barrel would have triggered at you.
Had I known your coming,
Then I a watch I would have set,
Seeming to be invisible yet invisible.

What sort of world is this?
Full of misery, full of woes!
With lives shortlived,
With a gleaming, admirable face causing tears
Like a rose in the young day
Scorched by the heat of the day;
Like the rising Sun that wakes and sleeps
As it recedes from sight;
As swift as the lightening, you fade and varnish
Just in a moment made so desperate
From Genesis thou remains inexplicable
And unsearchable – thou mysterious death.

No Other Way! by Princewill Webber

I have walked along the paths of life
Where pleasures and beauty lie,
In search of the way,
Thinking there’s the way,
But none seems to be satisfying.

Many ways there are which I see
Compelling multitude into the dungeon
With promise of solace
But disappointment was their lot.
It is only but a shadow.

I have trod into courts of many witnesses
Publishing and propagating the way,
Fables and delusion is the Godspeed
Many appeared to saints, even angels;
Now ‘tis true the true way has ‘vaporated them.

As I look around the globe,
Despair and disappointment
Fill this poor contempt heart;
Is there none that knows the way?
This, my daily meditation.

A glowworm there is at poles of the earth,
But how illuminate it the earth’s globe
When all being has fallen from the track
Being critical, skeptical about the true way.

Oh! How I desire to walk the true way
Where many bliss there are ahead.
It all appears to be a farce.
What then can I do?

I know there is a city above the hilltops;
I will strive, strive and strive;
Though there be no other way
There yet is a way, cross’s way through Jesus;
This will lead me home.

Life by Eunice Abraham Jumbo

Life is a crossroad;
Crossroad,
Which is needed to be walked upon.

Some rich and some poor;
Some high and some low;
All know that life is not an easy task

Life is sometimes bitter, endure it.
And is sometimes sweet, enjoy it.

Never be noisy nor angry,
Never be empty nor guilty.

Lies by Eunice Abraham Jumbo

Lies are dangerous
And very frivolous

Lies cause distraction
And also destruction
It causes conflict
And never cooperation

It causes disaster
It causes damage
Which cannot be sorted out
It also cause affliction

On the applicant
Lies cause crying
And pricks the heart
And makes one miserable

Lies are unconsolidated
And one can be tempted

Conscience by Eunice Abraham Jumbo

A conscience full of thought
And sometimes full of froth
Enemies beneath and above

Just obey the heart of sincerity
And disobey the voice of dishonesty

The conscience is also full of agony
When there is no purity

When the dew falls
The heart calls

When there are bricks
The conscience pricks

The conscience is full of love
When there is no cove

The conscience is sad, endure it
And full of joy, enjoy it

The conscience is delicious
And sometimes unconscious

My conscience aspire
What you desire
Never retire
But remain afire

Godswill Odeku

Ingrafted Ingrate!

The burdened horse rode the road lonely;
The donkey’s back saddled for stretches;
Riveting canoe, fluctuating, rides upstream
Now the despising stab and wound and pain.

Whither the sustenance save this paps strained?
Whither the dryness save this integument drenched?
Whither the defense save this rampart worn?
Now this shameless ingrate sings-a-ling.

The rat, the big rat in my house dug a hole,
I asked for more, no, many more holes,
For none tomorrow’s dangers tell
Nor the hasty stampede moderate
When chickens come home to roost.

Who feeds you
When you bite the finger that feeds you?
Who in cold covers you
When you fast-fling the warming quilt?
Who buoys you
When you bid the benevolent buoy bye?
Think ingrate!
Ingrafted ingrate think again, again!

Antagonist!

The raised bough over others
Some deem spread the beam,
Seldom their state ponder
Nor ever in soberness wonder
At higher plains the quarry strings.

Mocking canticles, sneering poetry;
The wageless devotion.
Found’ring canoe, the end
Of the water-beating spree,
Yet rides the canoe upstream un-let.

Antagonist of no theater,
When shall the script fulfill?
When shall thine act denoue?
That elated pews may tell tales
In the bosom of eerie nights
When lovers play age-old games.

Sweat-blood avails naught;
Seamless strivings vainly vain;
Crow or not, dawn sets like Sun;
Crawling shells denting progress paths;
Divine destination approaches;
Pregnant energies in wastelands;
When shall wisdom be your guest?

Wasting Youth!

Violence treads lawns lined with infatuated fans;
Trappings of terror as garlands of beauty;
The upper hand, the frightened face, the fleeing feet
4 Fanning embers of debased heroism:
Youth drenched in false notions!
Who saves this ensuing generation?
Should this distraction of mind thrive
At expense of innocent tomorrows?
9 Pregnant potentials at hell’s disposal;
Human spectrum sags beneath burden of vicious vice;
The taming rein lost in materialistic transit.
With recipe of rectitude lacking on the menu,
The conjecture the hobby and trepidation
14 Our disconsolate companion in this unveiling act.
Soul-cries in tandem with decomposing youth;
What hope abides this wasting youth?

Requiem for the Masquerade!

Are these rivers on the delta
Or mere collections of spatial rains?

Wrinkled faces garlanded with tears;
Quivering heads, gritting teeth, stunned ‘brows, entwined fingers:
Rites of passage to this passing mirage.

Contemplated comet at the distance now revealed,
Jetting across our vision,
Not even cosmic loam to renowned seers.

“Why this adventure of deceit?” we ask.
Six stairs nether adjudicates life’s wars;
Famous and infamous – the tagging.

Pity! The masquerade now bestrides daylight.

Dance of the Masquerade!

Saturation of the square with false steps,
Deviating determined drumbeats delineating homesteads,
‘Tis the transient daylight dance nonetheless;
Night tells another story!
5 Sepulchers from time held handsome relics;
Even the parished cemetery held perfumed bowels;
Barefaced mendacity, daylight truth-robberies
Shimmering on mental interfaces.
Pseudo-intellectuals, fake-professionals, mirage-millionaires
10 Holding hostage multitudes of innocent gullibles.
Spare a thought for worshippers at altars
Of confidence and reverence and deference,
Else when drums domicile our masquerade
And emptiness adorns the playground,
15 As dancers hang up fatigued paraphernalia,
Life resumed will unmask hidden faces.
The horned displays of our masquerade
Abides only a fleeting flare.
Masquerades may charm our sights
20 When minds are at large and dreamy and languid,
But regarb sober appraisals
When beaded feet aids memories of encountered sights;
What more, fingers and feet seldom fly kites.
Even I may choose not to play the play!

Crab Brother

Crab Brother!
Odeku, Godswill A.

Vast mangrove teeming wealth:
For food, for fair, for fanfare.
This forest of flavours,
Enough to grab for endless ages,
Yet Crab Brother with hand-pincers
Grabs on!

Gathering hands, crushing pincers:
Left, right; from pot, from fire;
None for siblings, none for quislings:
The grabbing goes on!

How you forget your people’s plight;
The charred lands,
The castrated mangroves,
The deprived livelihood,
The demeaned people;
How you forget beats me!

Your reward dead in the grave,
The smile-sneer your lot,
The threshold the limit
Of the fawning perambulation;
Beggars, lunatics stay there too!

The Good Wife

Silent to a foolish fault,
Following sheepishly subterfuge
of an alien,
Undoing even the birthing paps.
Was it to save matrimony
Or just to keep harmony,
This adventure of goodness?

Denial of a wife’s regalia,
Spite of the brooding laps,
Deforestation of seething rain forests
Disemboweling of heavily clustered seas
Was the sight at large
Or was it a conniving stunt,
This proselytizing devotion?

The train ride held thrills;
Rickety, it left gaping gaps,
To some hearts might define affection;
To lengthy miles convey love unmeasured;
Giving locus to killing neglect.

Mails reach the furthest rims
Of earth’s endless reaches;
Were wisdom on a far journey,
The business urgent excluding hesitation,
Intercessions still may avail,
That hearts may confer with prudence.

My little Girl writes by Godswill Odeku

On a fine morning my little girl
Saw I scribbling on the sand.
Yes! She wrote on the sand.
She wrote with her little hand.
Tho’ what it was I can’t tell,
6 For it was at best illegible.

But then ‘twas right she wrote,
For when those thoughts,
Those precious thoughts,
Build up in the mind,
‘Tis best they’re written.
12 For thus posterity is blessed
And progeny is revered.

Tho’ her writing mayn’t be sight,
Yet, what is written brings light
To our minds as we fight
To erase ignorance by light
18 Of knowledge we have received.

So ‘tis wise for my little girl
To have written on the sand
In the dawn of the morning.

Torch of Imperialism by Godswill Odeku

On the horizon of waters,
At the far fringes of my land,
Beams the torch of imperialism.
Gazing at me with unfeigned mockery,
Diffusing death to my land.

Aglow with radiant ambience,
Witnessed at the ends of Obololand,
Beams the torch of imperialism.
To the ignorant of reality,
Infusing an hopeless hope.

A testament to hateful greed,
An evidence of undiscovered sleaze,
Beams the torch of imperialism.
Posting in the heavens for Knowledge,
That which from knowledge was hid.

Poison to our nasal soup,
Filth to my drink, to my bath,
Beams the torch of imperialism.
A curse to my land, to nature;
Standing on the tower of the West,
Is this despicable Torch,
Despicable Torch of Imperialism!

Paradox of Plenty by Godswill Odeku

The want of plenty,
The lack of abundance,
The hunger of the food basket,
This paradox of reality;
5 Of my land, of my home, of my nativity
is true!

Strength fawning servitude
is denied.
Agitation craving justice
christened criminality.
Desire, denied, adorns quietude;
acquiescence, concurrence, weakness
No doubt, must be.
10 This paradox lives on…

The farmland of plenty.
The food basket,
resource reservoir, economic jackpot,
The cruelly denied, besmirched,
downtrodden, and damned.
The fool feeding fat
an untiring buffoon
15 With the bleeding breast milk
of her straining bosom.

At thy expense, oh, Delta!
Is sustained the crème, colour, carriage
of the Rock at Aso.
Bloatings of pride, policy, penurious
pilfering.
Satiating of the Clubs at Paris,
London, New York,
20 I repeat, is at your expense
Oh, Delta! Niger’s Delta!

The rich farmer’s children famish!
The clothmaker’s children naked!
The fuelmaker’s engine with no lifeline!
In the midst of milk and honey,
Kwashiorkor, malnutrition, abject lack.
What a baffling paradox?
28 Poverty, plenty, paradox:
Soulmates unjustly harmonized,
Leaving for posterity
This paradox of plenty.

Shall these cease?
Whither shall this river expire?
At the doorstep of Justice,
at the farmland of truth,
at the discretion of Mercy
35 Or maybe, maybe,
at the cataclysmic inferno
of frozen discontent, of caged anger!
Whither? Whither?
A paradox of plenty!
A perplexing paradox indeed!

Paths of our lives! by Godswill Odeku

The paths of our lives go different ways,
That when we meet after many days
We tend to ask questions of many years,
Judging how Providence has favoured us.

When we meet ourselves in wellness
And share our stories in earnest,
We forget years of forlorn bitterness
When we thought life had undone us.

Life’s experiences teach us again
That we sure have a lot to gain
That we are drawn closer as again
We meet to part no more.

It is then we see the good
In keeping faith with the brotherhood,
That separation will do us much good
Though ‘tis beautiful to stay together.

Sunday Morning Rain by Godswill Odeku

Of what use your alienating visit?
On this day sacred from the resurrection,
On this day when good men converge earth
In pristine adoration of the Most Pristine:
Singing, listening, thinking of Calvary.

To what end your investment of showers?
Drenching ironed-starched finery of apparels,
Offspring of Saturday night’s toils,
Tho’ the serpents’ belly bear dead men’s bones:
Floating, posing, glossing vast iniquities.

Souls stacked for salvation,
Who this morning should hear faith-bearing seed,
This morning soak in sin-cleansing fountain,
Arising from sepulchers of caked iniquities,
Hatching righteousness, apotheosizing the Son of man:
All held back by avalanche of drenching cascades.

Were you to ask this or another morning,
My answer would travel the way
Of allowing righteousness to sprout like mushroom,
Or to flow like the rivers or to rain in torrents
And for starched brocades and stretched silk-cotton
To lead each other home.

Then if the earth be wet or roofs relay drum-beats
And gullies line the landscape,
I won’t mind the least
But make shells of fine wool.

Love of my life by Godswill Odeku

You are the love of my life,
I want you to be my wife.
If there was anything else I desire,
It is with love set your heart on fire,
For you are the one I desire.

Riding the waves, you were with me;
On the lone road, you were with me;
When in sorrow none else came by,
Love as seldom seen, you stood by me;
Where on earth can I this love buy?

The sweet mother my kids would need;
Who with sweet milk their hunger feed;
Who my home’ll make a haven of bliss;
By play and play play my fantasies;
Who fits the bill but my beau?

To fall at your feet of gold;
Adore your heart of diamond;
Cherish my indescribable jewel;
Admire this one I love so so well:
My streaming desire and devotion.

Beauty of a Wife by Godswill Odeku

To unravel a woman’s beauty
Is ever a man’s duty;
To give her good comfort,
At all times be her support,
Bearing her as one would a child;

To provide funds for finery,
And find food for family;
To create joy and cheer
And drive away fear:
Men should seldom deem a burden.

Strength to soak her stress,
Grace to so impress
Her by every means possible,
Standing strong against the terrible
Would sure unearth her good graces.

To know when is best
To sing, sigh or rest;
Her sweetest desires know
Before she ever says so,
Her sweet smiles always will discover.

Not much to make a girl a queen,
Just some soft touches here and there;
Bring a pillow when her head sags;
Please bring, on your way home, some bags
Of goodie goodies for her.

Never fail to bless her ears,
Never fail to wipe her tears,
Never cease to sing her praise,
Always try to raise her face
before all, and
Remember to make her your queen.