Tag: feelings

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

When are we going to see again

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

by

 

Noel Ihebuzor

 

When are we going to see
she asked, her dreamy voice
dripping with desire
and he replied
his voice sober and still
When the sea sings
and seals swim rapids
in slow sweet sync
when the slowest miler
becomes the sweetest smiler
and the time keeper
beckons on Air clad snails
to breast the tape
for the diner of the famished to commence
Yes, when the sea ceases
her never ending swim
in circles of seamless curves
after mermaids hang their laundry on ropes in the sky
And the sky empties its
voice into the willing  sea
We shall see, and sing and swim
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

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

Uncoupling

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel A. Ihebuzor

 

Remember,

When we signed and swore

to soar,

 

for better, for worse,

the moons have now since faded, dimmed

stars twinkle less bright,

 

on a sky blanketed by our  mutual misery

our nights now filled by this burgeoning void

that is us

 

the flames died slowly,

smoke filled our empty eyes, red blank

our tongues broken, wooden

our ears drowned by the din of our inner voices

 

And us two in tow,

now sour and bitter

bride and groom no more

rather through your assured lenses –

pride and groom,

through my lenses, clean and clear –

bride and gloom

 

We now dance to blame songs

two souls in discord

dancing to drumbeats of doom, singing

“your fault not mine, my love, your lust;

My trust, your rust;  my care, your tear”

we sing so well, nourished

by a slow low constant flame of pain
our emotions lame and crippled,
bitterness slowly freezing

frying our insides, as enlarging cold rage
fractures our world and hardens

borders and boundaries

 

We match and trade barbs of mutual hurt

And we march forward backwards,

bent and bitten,

weary and wary

on a broken road,

saddled, burdened

with loads and worries

not love, on our broken battered shoulders

and souls

Posted in Poetry

The Call of Spring

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel Ihebuzor

In response to Susan Daniel’s here

 

at last

spring’s sprites arrive

the earth stirs, bodies heave to season humming

 

at last, at loving last

sleeping daffodils snap

to life to wave, to touch, beckon,

to stir spring worshippers

 

at last, at sweetly loving last,

the long waiting withheld voices

of people and poets spring to life

singing, celebrating, dancing to

this new external unfolding,

internals awakening to joyous stirrings

all the senses humming

Posted in Poetry

V is for Violence and Violation

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel Ihebuzor and Susan Daniels

You return always to your ritual
of force, your battering fists hammering away in freed up fits of fury, harkening only to the assured impulses of your
heart of steel, ferrying you to stages of stone, long assumed gone,
dormant but dominant
clenched fists of metal rusting
behind its lustre of polished calm
Simmering tension running subterranean
ever willing, trigger happy, happy pugilist,

It is a lottery won by 7 out of 10 women,
With prizes of broken bones, torn souls;
Whose mouths swallow knocked-out teeth
And bitten tongues. She says
She ran into a door, and a door
Fell on me once, but how many doors
Can one woman run into
Before she says she ran
Into a fist?

You pound the rib
You gave into shapeless broken fragments
the call of the residual is strong
damming and diverting rivers uphill
to flow in impossible unceasing eddies
and in tiring sterile circles

He does not always hide
In bushes or haunt alleys
Like a cat hunting mice:
We know our attackers
Two-thirds of the time.
Numbers do not lie.
The strangers we were warned off
Are not as dangerous as friends
38% of the time, or men
We think we know, 73%
Of them our rapists without masks.

And behind the smile, the polish
the beast lurks, ready to
pounce and pound flesh to prove the power
of the mighty proud to a lamb

We ask for it, old women
Dressed in housecoats
And young ones in sweatpants
Who jog bike paths,
Or women who look
At their husbands
Without the right balance of fear.
We are always asking for it,
Simply by breathing.

And we breathe the fear of the brawn breed
trapped in culture’s cages,
bent, stooped, stopped and stumped by glass ceilings
and your febrile insecure masculinity

It is your fear that chokes you
as you choke me, break me and break us,

Your false potency creates tsunamis of true impotency
and you forget that the truly strong
are not afraid of being weak
and that only the weak
embrace violence to prove power.

***As always, a pleasure to collaborate with my friend and duet partner Susan especially for International Women’s Day. Susan’s words pierce and her statistics call attention to the disturbing pattern and spread of gender based violence. They challenge us to act, to act fast and NOW. My words are in regular typeface. Susan’s are italicized.

Tristesse

Posted in Poetry

The gravity of grafitti – wild hate singing on wide walls

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel Ihebuzor

 

Naming is dangerous, cheap

prejudice and hate,

foul the skies

with clammy paws and febrile strokes

spraying lurid ugliness

on the frames of non-consenting city walls,

obscene images and messages,

spewing and strewing hate and hurt

internal rot, riots and rages uncaged, intrusions,

extrusions ugly as rape, ragged, raging

Seeds of discord sow, soon sprout

creeping, spreading, spawning like

poisonous parasitic fungi on tired urban walls

revealing the jungle and darknesses within.

Their message?

Hate, discord and despair,

sad triplets, their grips cloud vision,

clog hearing and choke reason

as they slowly suck their victims

to ever resounding and noisy hollowness!

 

***Prompted by SLD’s Cultural Grafitti

Cultural Graffiti

Posted in Poetry

“tion” words – emotion in action

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel Ihebuzor

 

Seduction,

words, glances, gestures

and signs all singing innocence,

guile innocently garbed in see-through lace, wonyosi,

seeds laced and laden with suggestion

of slow gentle adduction

consensual abduction,

mutual attraction, prehensile and  tensile,

O youth, shine your eyes,

read the small print

approach with caution, resist acceleration

to end points and end games

steeped in action, multiplication, addition,

and deception and substraction.