The sound of ignorance and the color of prejudice!
Author: Noel Ihebuzor
Development and policy analyst with a strong interest in the arts and inclusive social change.
Dabbles occasionally into poetry and literary criticism!
So You wont to write….! A must read. Mind your ribs though!
Here it is, in no particular order, although the list is numbered (keep in mind, this is all meant to be sarcastic):
1. Listen to lots of music while writing. The rhythm of your words should definitely come from an external source rather than from you.
2. Drink alcohol, at least two glasses of wine and never less than one glass of scotch, because inspiration originates in a bottle. Or can. Or whatever.
3. Read a multitude of bad writing so that you can feel invincible while also lowering your standards.
4. Read tons of good writing, so that you can feel crushed under the weight of your literary heroes.
5. Spend several hours determining the best place for you to write, because in the end, it’s the setting that makes the writer doesn’t it.
6. Write when you’re most tired and are really dragging it, because tired…
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Juanita
Our dearest JuanitaJuanita During
By Noel A. Ihebuzor
If my tongue does not move to mourn you
it is not that I am now dumb
sorrow like a furnace has dried up the dew
that freshens this soul, now numb
inside me all is dry, parched
save moist eyes from whence sorrow
tumbles down to an earth drenched
in the blood of a suddenly closed tomorrow
Juanita, if you could hear me
broken now, forlorn me
my wooden tongue stuck to my palate, me
throat dried, cracked and broken, me
If you could decode my silent sobbing,
you would sense my inner voice,
linked with a thousand others, hurting
wailing and railing at failed social services
in a continent that is yet to learn to rise and live
mourning a star departed
on the morning before her arrival
***** I got news yesterday PM of Juanita’s death. Juanita was/is a colleague, friend, soul mate, poet and one with whom I shared several intellectual coffees and visions for inclusive global development. Now, she is gone..and what pains most is that this death could have been avoided! Sleep well, Junaita…Juanitissima as I would tease you!
And he fed them, 5000 men not counting woman and children – (gender and child participation were in infancy at that period!)
a critique of violence as a response to crisis!
your fists
shatter mirrors
punch holes in walls
& you with
bleeding knuckles
slam your own face
into a door
to prove
what
(?)
that what breaks you
inside
to sharpness
is your heart
breaking
& you must
keep milling it
to the point
you suck pain
from an acid tit
& go look for more
still hungry
you grind
that glass core
further into flour
your daily bitter bread
that cuts
when you swallow
unmaking yourself
while trying to shake
the world
into something
as damaged as you
the doors you kick down
will never
open to anywhere
you want to be
so stop trying
***here you go, Jeremy. Inspired (sort of) by Jeremy’s poem on violence, here.
Voice over waves
By Noel Ihebuzor
Voice floating over land and waves
flowing, fluttering, humming
bearing floral images, scent
fresh mint-rosemary blended,
taste of ripe berries, full juicy
ears gently caressed with
smiles laced with flavor
of melting vanilla essence
bearing floral images, scent
fresh mint-rosemary blended,
taste of ripe berries, full juicy
ears gently caressed with
smiles laced with flavor
of melting vanilla essence
voice calm cooling,
oozing mature sweet port like essences
on antennaed ears
soft tenderly touching
across long miles in singing
warming particles,
stirring longings
even longer
and rising
soft tenderly touching
across long miles in singing
warming particles,
stirring longings
even longer
and rising
with every drop
“party activists”
By Noel A. Ihebuzor
Simmering rancour lumbers, raging
opposition mutates to 0-positions,
zero sum games, zeroing and leading
to blame game, verbal joust sodden with vitriol
ugly and promising to balloon to violence
spiralling envy enlarges greenish, swelling,
smelling fevered phlegm
stirs red hate, hot pepper in café latte,
the yellowish-red eye, blood shot,
poisoned, clouding sight,
vision blurred and blinkered
linked to clogged blocked ears
occluding the voice of moderation
ambition binds minds,
asphyxiating the voice of reason that wails
strapping and shackling it
in dark airless dungeons,
the empire of fulminant rage,
where barbed tongues uncoil
splattering venom,
drumming discord deceitful
as envy limbers, driving transient pursuits
smear paints, tar taints, stirs, tears and sears
the other, in forms grotesque,
deforming and defaming
galloping ambitious feet fixed
on a chosen route to attain gain and fame,
ultimate twin goals
and the people, poor souls sandwiched
matter between hammer and anvil
hapless, malleable
caught in hurting, heating up and hitting dispute
and cut to pieces as peace shatters
in the hard, hurtful hands of haters and hatters
**** written after following very ugly exchanges on Twitter on the 14/15 July during and after a guber election. How badly the strident voices of a belligerent few pollute the political space.
Haiku Prompt – “First”
By Noel Ihebuzor – three haikus
1.
First always resides
in the past but conditions
present and future
2.
First sings best where souls
script rich lines in shared colors,
that merge past and now
3.
First hands etch deep marks
on soft canvas of fresh souls
marks that free or freeze
Beautiful poetry – haunting!
i don’t want blood enough.
maybe it’s the mixing–
i wouldn’t mind smearing mixed
with soil or mud into a river
but is that enough?
am i dirt animal enough
to call myself wild, to pretend
i feel planted when
i have both feet
on the ground?
i want to be the girl with the wolf
in her teeth.
how can you know me
when i am not her
not tearing apart fear
in the forest
white flashes of teeth or the smell
of broken roan fur?
i do not forgive him for hunting me,
he should not expect it.
he should wonder then
when the killing season comes
why
i have been merciful
in singing his death song
loud
so he can expect dirt in his teeth–
the girl with blood on her arms.
arms are just arms, i can’t lay
mine like a track
around the country that…
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