—–SLYBARD—–"Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain UNSOUNDNESS of mind."
My Muse thus guides this feeble hand to con old topics as Swift did in his time; and perhaps I shall be chanced to write much better verse…Archive for Prudent call from a Muse
African funeral
The poet’s mind is … a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.
I used to watch Professor Mazrui’s The Africans. It filled me with a lot of pride but also angered me.For example the tax policy. In Dr.Mazrui’s own words “…the African must pay tax for owning hut, hence the hut tax…”
The series was also a great source of inspiration as proven below. I have never been a fan borrowing money to supplement the national budget.Personally, the worst thing that can happen to me is to owe someone money or anything for that matter. And this whole neo-colonialism irks me to bits!Every developed country is rushing back to Africa to get a piece of the cake.Aaaargghh!
I heard that the devil is black,
light white and evil dark;
That we can’t decisions make
nor our own voices raise.
But when the worm, we are forced to take,
from a hook, for Hunger’s wiles irresistable,
who but the Fishermen, feast on praise?
Who shines in our night, the light irrevocable?
In black suits at the funeral they stand;
the cause, we can never understand.
He who de cap fit
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
When Bush attacked Iraq, I was one of those who cheered him on. But after I found out that it was not only about Weapons of Mass Destruction(W.O.M.D), I quickly joined Al Gore’s bandwagon.
Tony Snow was the White House spokesman then, and the other Tony is Blair.This was written after reading Virgin triangle-Kevin Baldeosingh(A wonderful read by the way).So I had all this calypso running through my head.I thought using patois would add some satirical value to the poem.Am sure every one has heard of reggae legend Glenn Washington, most commonly known for Gate pass(/…Give me the keys,give me the gate pass to your heart/Give me your number so we can make a start…/ and then /… should I bride security, just to gain an entrance/Gal where is my gate pass to your heart,yay…/)
Glenn pon de radio played;
Pon de street, death noh delayed.
Blue we sky once looked,
But a cloud dark now looms.
Is noh it to satire ah advantage,
dat Babylon once fi evil hooked,
boil as a cauldron ah oil booms;
Dat frien’ became of a savage?
Yet Tony en George led we,
by de arm, blin’ as we wasn’,
into a bloodbath not wee.
Clearly, a reason remain in wan’.
For Sidney Sheldon
A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or alovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
In school, reading novels was left to the chicks and students of literature.I was neither but got away with it.Harry Potter did it for me, before I came to know Jeffrey Archer, Karen Robard, Danielle Steel, Stephen King, Robert Ludlum(up there on my list of favourites), John Grisham(another favourite) and Sidney Sheldon.
At the time of his death, I’d read The sands of time;Morning,noon and night;The naked face. The windmills of the gods,The other side of midnight and The sky is falling.I was planning to read the rest of his books, the one’s I liked: Bloodline and Stranger in the mirror.
This elegy was written a few days after he passed on.May his soul R.I.P.
Morning,noon and night
through the rough sands of time,
we prayed never to see the naked face
of the ugly, other side of midnight.
For life is a stranger in the mirror
as we draw further and IT nearer;
And the windmills of the gods
can’t upset or avert Fate’s odds.
Hence the sky is falling,
where was it once flying.
THE EPITAPH
Here lies one of his kind,
who, with ink and paper, tamed a mind.
For Luther
Poetry is the impish attempt to paint the colour of the wind.
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood
-T. S. Eliot
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand
- Plato
Luther Vandross gave hearts the hope of true love and his music tagged at our souls.Too bad my time of birth only gave me a decade or so with him,listening to his music.We still miss him.Him and the others:Left eye,Tupac,Aaliyah,Ray Charles,Marvin Gaye etc.This elegy is for him.
Lithely a life:
Like a lion,
its cub must act.
Like a star you were born;
wonder as your walking stone.
Time is like the wind:
alluring yet mysterious.
So, we quell our grief
a little but in vain.
The Epitaph:
Heaven has received a singer;
But our loss and grief linger.
Unsung elegies/Prudent call from a Muse
After another failure
If there’s one thing I know about me,it’s the disturbing fact that I’ve bad luck or if I have any at all,there’s something wrong with it.How else can I explain the numerous times we did something as a group and it was I that got caught or found out?Never mind that am very cautious and ,thanks to my mom,very risk averse.I wrote this poem 4 years ago when I was struggling with esteem problems.I’ve since then won many wars but absolute victory still eludes me.I try as much as possible not to blog about my personal life but well,there are times when saying it lightens the burden.
When you are an epitome of failure,
your heart adapts to any Hell.
When you realize that you are a loser,
your conscience learns to endure.
When desperation takes the form of a laser,
which consumes your heart and you can’t repel,
your life and soul fall short of pure!
Prudent call from a Muse
Loving pain
My Muse is on vacation,I’ve ‘zibs’ to think about and I don’t like posting new poems(those written that week or year) cuz,in a weird way,it reduces my creativity.So I’m into old poems now.I wrote this when I was 17.The style is free verse meaning that my meter(the number of syllables per line) is irregular.In most free verse poems,there’s also no rhyme scheme;however,I usually keep the rhyme scheme in my free verse poems to make them more ‘poem-like’.
If only I knew
that love brought feelings new
that obliterated more than
reason can dare to fathom,
my heart wouldn’t be a whirling fan;
nor my mind a full-empty can.
If only I knew how to conform
to the ironies of love, or give due
to delusive a norm
of loving what’s already taken,I’d form
sense out of the fact that in your heart’s life span,
it will, in search of love ache anew!
To be smitten…
It’s funny what love does;
what love on it’s cue does.
Thanks to the auspicious myth that love is meek!
How it induces childish frolic
in my heart or lures it into frisson!
How it triggers lush emotions
whose intricacy eludes reason;
how it figures rash devotions,
never mind the season,
or employs large a garrison
to keep your sanity in check!
How it keeps my heart playing Bach’s fugue
(better than Bach himself by the neck)
or, makes necessity huge
and a feeling i can’t fathom at stake!
A verse on love
When a heart sings
along as the piano, love plays,
and his darts Cupid aims;
the song sounds better, as if to satisfy
the demand that in stride it evokes.
Such does but forth a verse brings,
whose intricacy only divine clays
can of its mould lay claim.
then its harp the heart leans to string,
and rely on the tune it provokes.
To like and to love
To like and to love
are separated by a wall thin;
which to its purpose serve,
easily crumbles for lack of a spin!
A ROSE IN THE MULTITUDE
Today, i saw a rose,
though day i know i froze.
tomorrow i will be flying,
to sorrow a meal be dying.
today, a glow arose
to say,ah!, Isle of Rose.
