Category: Poetry

Posted in Poetry

The Color of Blood

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel A. Ihebuzor

sometimes, some situations

make you feel

that blood is unequally weighted

unequally valued, unequally mourned

sometimes, some comments

make you believe that

some blood is more red,

more human than others

that when and where bred

color blood richer crimson,

color our views about those who shed

and those whose blood is shed

the why bleeds away

with the ugly gurgle

of once bubbling blood

that soaks, drenches the sand,

Rage is subdued by reality

silence is sage when walls

listen and even hear whispers

and skies can rain final silence

yet, does all blood

not smell the same

rusting iron mingled with sickening fresh

no matter how weighted,

or is there second hand blood,

from second class humans,

colored in oluwole crimson

in this our unequal world?

Posted in Poetry

For Stomach Infrastructure Theorists

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel A. Ihebuzor

Truth looks on
impressed by our eloquence
but bemused by our biases

amused by our puny arguments
rankled by our ragged rationalisations
but still she remains silent

silent but sad as again
she recalls the deafness
of a world peopled by vain mortals

sorrowful, yet hopeful,
she surveys our clumsy
sheep led-by-gain gaits

our eyes fixed on stash
vision lulled and dulled
by the lure of lucre

as all logic is locked away
and facts blended by simple reason
are now branded as sinful treason.

*This poem is critique of the new theory of stomach infrastructure which attempts to explain losses in a recent election in Ekiti State by claiming that voter behaviour was swayed by food gifts. Stomach Infrastructure theory is at best a rationalization by persons who are unwilling to look at events objectively and to learn lessons from them**.

Posted in Poetry

A song for the Girl Child

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel A. Ihebuzor

Ekwe, ogenes and udus

from a dawning new day

play a sombre serenade,

whispering and suggesting

new worlds, new possibilities

and on the waking skies, words inscribed

on a rainbow-ed horizon hum

your amazing qualities of universal verity

Sister, daughter, seed carrier,

Future assurer, energiser, builder,

Calmer, softener, sweetener, peace maker

The tunes stir and wake you

you rise, a flower about to blossom

and gaze in sober silence at the signs scripted

in golden sprinkles on the aprons of  a dawning day,

your smile of innocence splays the sky

salutes the dawn and sprays the new day

with fragrances of hope and possibilities

And the rainbow-ed horizon hum on their truths

Sower, harvester, protector, shock absorber, sufferer

Nurturer, Nurse, first responder, stabiliser,  

Keeper, organiser, model, inspirer, teacher,

And I thought I saw a new smile kiss your face,

saw in that smile the dancing hopes

of glow filled futures for all

if culture and gender

do not suffocate the seeds you carry within for all

and in this dawning morning,

where hope sang to my anxious ears

and possibilities danced and beckoned

I prayed in silence for the world

to nurture and cultivate

the generous seeds of transferable greatness

that nature has richly embedded in your bosom

and your fertile and supple mind

so that we all could harvest from it

a future of gladness and greatness

**Adding my raucous voice to those celebrating this year’s (2013) day of the girl child.  Not the best of songs, but the intention should redeem all its imperfections

Noel

Posted in Poetry

Lamentations

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel A. Ihebuzor

We are the broken ones

ones about to be broken

about to break again

soft wood stuck

between hammer and anvil

Debris like cloud dust

from fleeing time now

float in our semi-circular

canals, our tympanic membranes

tampered, in shreds and tatters

Swirling dusts of rage,

coloured by clan and clime

by breed and creed

cloud our vision

we see hazy in the enveloping mist

where truth lies supine

and lies triumph

Wise counsel struggles for hearing

but is ignored, the midwife of truth

has been sacked, a vicious grip

holds the throat of the sooth saying parrot

and trampled truth struggles still to rise

Let Him and Her that hath even one ear

listen and hear

let even the blind

see and read these prophecies

scripted hazily on these patchy papyrus

with ink drawn from the veins of the dying

Let Her, let Him

even the clumsy with a broken tongue,

a struggling stammer

sign sing these messages

to a deaf world

For in hearing,

and heeding

in reading, decoding and recoding

in listening and speaking

lies escape, recovery and renewal

and new beginnings

May the bond

of the heart bound in hatred

be broken, shattered

scattered in the dust

let scattered hopes regroup

to oppose doom and destitution

and broken hearts begin to mend,

rebuild, re-bond and rebound,

binding all bile and bitterness

casting them to funeral pyres

of unending infernos

***Feeeling blue on a Friday and worrying about my country!

Posted in Poetry

Achilles unchained

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel A. Ihebuzor

 

Achilles rode headlong into

headlong battle,

riding in a cranky chariot of straw and smoke

vision dim and dimming,

still he charged into the fray,

in loosening losing circles

against imagined enemies

 

And in the ever widening void of his mind

he battled them all,

he disgraced them all,

he speared them all

with his blunt sword

soaked in the iron oxide

that dripped from him,

he spared none

He staked all,

the impostors, the stateless,  stake-less stakeholders,

pretenders, false claimants, heritage grabbers,

ingrates and gate crashers,

the uncultured, the crude,

their women, his “claimed wenches”

 

Their battered remains,

he drags in rags round his city walls

a conjecture and structure,

spawns of a fertile but fetid imagination,

where truth is tried, tied down, tortured

and twisted tall tales are told and sold

 

The blue sheen of the filling up moon,

Blending with a seething red and

a sickening dull green,

swirling and swelling within him

fill his mind, dulling and lulling his thoughts

 

The battle words he froths now,

the battle incantations he speaks

are all whisperings from what he hears

the moon speak to his dangling mind

the enemies he sees outside are from within him

sad but gleeful denizens of the forest and bush

he carries in his darkening soul, demons –

a thousand and one of them

who prey on, void in and void his mind

and put his own heel in his mouth

Posted in Poetry

Honey, it’s heaven in my womb.

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By 

Natasha Sebunya


Tears make their way through the passage carved by the loneliness that your sorry ass created
My irises burn open with the sting of regret
The salty taste bubbles through the vocal chord that had been silenced by your insensitivities
But then I hear the familiar thump that pounds in my chest
And hey, blood is still running through my veins, and air still fills my lungs
And I am reminded that I still live
Breathe- speak-beat-live
I almost drowned in a pity filled pool
Thank God I saw in it the reflection of that fool
She 5,3 drowning in tears for some fool
(who by the way is not even that big)
And I remembered
Knees-hands! crawl…left-right,march! One-two,fly!
Breathe-speak-beat-live
And I thought to myself;
There should be a license for the penis
Drive at 16, drink at 21, penis at 33
Some sort of a class where they are taught,
You opening my door, does not equate to me opening my legs
You can, and honey yes you may, buy me flowers, diamonds, a house, and some of you even the world
But mister! you can never afford my heart
My uterus is not for sale, baby not even for rent,
You have that weapon that sits between your legs, but remember I can make rise
And don’t you forget,
Honey, it’s heaven in my womb.

 

Another strong poem by Natasha Sebunya

Posted in Poetry

A mine-field of an alcoholic’s ticking emotions

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Natasha Sebunya
For her love is the unshed tear
The hushed cry of a strangled soul
As he strikes her
With the palm that once stroked her cheek
The mark of his, no their, wedding ring scarring her blush painted face
Her mascara veiled eyes clouded by the frozen pain of tears iced into anger
Search for their, no her, two year old son
As her decaying soul howls a lullaby in prayer
To the Jesus that is supposed to live in her so that
The blows of her husband’s blows do not wake her child
Happy –anniversary-
For once,
Their love was of passion
For love was loving and his love was her living
Their love was of moon-bathed nights
Little black dresses, rouge lips and coal-lined eyes
Her stiletto raised legs, planted onto virgin hips
As she was swayed by the rugged palm of her tall-dark-and handsome
For love was the promise strum
By that passion-driven scum
For his promise was of security, not this mine-field of an alcoholic’s ticking emotions.
Now her emotions hold her hostage to this monster, this phantom,
This parasite that nourishes on her insecurities.

 

***I met this young poet two days ago. She has just completed her IB exams and is waiting to proceed to university in September this year in the USA. Her poetry blew my mind. Here is one of her poems.

Posted in Poetry

Peace and Pieces on a Chessboard

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel A. Ihebuzor

ChessSet

On an uneven chessboard, across

boundaries of squares, fading

lines almost erased by coarse rough moves

pawns lurch around in drunken

lounging leaps

 

 

To the beckon and rhythm of the imperious,

rooks regal in a flurry of frenzied

moves, cavort in wobbly diagonal swoops

the dance of hubris revs and raves,

in the dawning madness

sense swims poorly and eventually drowns

 

 

We sit and watch the king’s ungainly ambles

the queen’s sauntering about

all over and everywhere

in kinky dizzying circles and cycles

in spins like a dancer

possessed and guided by the moon

 

 

Voice hoarse with passion, she

chants the moon is mine

that star is yours

but the sun is mine, mine to have and hold

as I please

 

 

And in this maddening clamour

of screams and scrambles like from fevered dreams

all that emerges,

ugly like a noisy fart at prayers

is a fight for portions of a cake

we did not bake

but “reason” now belongs to treason

to the loud and the lewd

 

 

Pawns and persons move,

associations form and un-form,

permanence is fluid

fluidity, permanent

 

 

During this dance of pawns and rooks,

of crooks, new saints,

canonized in their halls of infamy

play new strains of strange chimes of fiefdom

suggestive of floating notes

from tunes of thiefdom

 

 

In these moves and countermoves

the loudest is always right

the cloak of might and night

threatens the light of truth

 

 

Soon the haze of a dawning evening

catches pawns, bishops, king, queen and knights

unawares, night soon blankets them,

while the stars above blink and wink

at the now dispersing crowd,

seduced and befuddled onlookers

still clutching the half full bowls of porridge

for which they sold their soles and souls

and pawned their very voices

 

 

Posted in Poetry

Flowers you test by

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel Ihebuzor

Flowers you test by

sight, smell and feel; concerts by

sounds, sights and ambiance;

Perfume spelt by

by her  smell, pull and

her voice, suggestive.

The test for a group

where creed sags,  hazy, buried

blurred by greed is tough

Passions, power grab

freeze reason, open the path

to nought and rot

the vast plains remain

gridlocked by greed, choked in the

fumes of raucous groups

all greed, grab and no creed

The morning tells the day

the weak wobbly legs of the malu

speak louder than the soothsayer’s beads

telling an amused world whether this malu

will make the trek from Ogwumabiri to Ariara.

**Malu means cow.

***Ogwumabiri and Ariara are market in Owerri and Aba respectively