REFLECTIONS

I spilled a bottle of beer as the foam gagged up to heaven
In a German-grade tumbler, crystal-clear
contrasting the colour of my heart.

I fell once again deliberately to the devil.
I failed her test because I had to fail to make her see me for who I am
Not who I'm carefully learning to be.

After all, love is unconditional
And she will hurt more if I piled up the lies.

It was all a lie. I didn't defeat my monster.
There's no monster but me,
And she will love me still despite my flaws
Or I will conclude I certainly have no chance to be loved again.

But my love,
I have first to win the walls before the war and then the world before your heart.
Only then will Love's birthday be celebrated
amongst nobles and royalties
In Jupiter.

THE LYCAN OF UYO

Thick white furs on light chocolate skin
From those amber eyes torrid passionate glare pourin'
Crawling in the dark like a demon unleashed from Hell
Tormented in moon nights, forced out of his cell...

In tormenting gaits as if missing yesterday 'n' being carefree,
As if missing humanity and the jocund glee in irresponsibility
He often steals into the forest with teary eyes
Away from man and all his lies.

Often he will sit in a river bank howling and scaring the fishes
Or hunt wild pigs and snakes or watch the flashes
When fireflies light the forest
Or walk into mystic caves hidden from men and watch trolls rest.

He commune with spirits and fairies from Avalon
And watch over a young wolf predated by a python
He had lost his mom to the hunter's trap
The helpless little thing never left his telepathic map.

He is a loner with  brown furs around his neck
They say it is the mark of an Alpha; that idea he scoffs and heck.
He just sit and listen to friends pulse rise with every lie
And down their fake gestures like broken notes in a tie.

He loves listening to girls gossip and see 'hem pretend.
He break into hospitals to 'miserables' life lend
By feeding 'hem his blood and see 'hem heal alleviates the strife
Between good and evil as he often mock the moon saying ''let's go save a life''.

The lycan of Uyo is that close friend you never really knew
That hero that rescued you from bandits that you wish you knew
That creature with a glaring eye that actually revived your poisoned son
That guardian angel, that huge dog you actually chased with a gun....

SONNET

We fall beneath our crooked being
That now we live without the fear of The Sovereign
For we yearn only for the things the flesh hunger
And we abandon the precepts of our maker;
How to age we have lost our innocence
That holy childhood bestowed as an ad to a righteous existence
That now we do not forgive nor imbibe in love
The very wheel that our pompous existence drove.

Age has broken the very femur on which I stand
For now I reminiscence kindness in the dregs of time
And on the rare mirror of platitude hackneyed and grand
In threadbare vision dent' and blur'ed by remorse 'at years de-clime;
For I lost the war between childhood and the devil;
We all lost the war between good and evil.

SPIROGYRA

With the stretch of time, blind paintings on cracked walls,
Shows the ire of age and upon you this lazy skin it befalls.
Broken lines run corollary through your sullen face,
How age has reduced beauty to this disgrace!

Spirogyra raid the clear pictures of yesterday
And devoutly remind us lest we forget everyday
How far we have travelled on the expensive lanes of life
And how unsparing time has enclosed with defiance and strife.

Spirogyra creep on the broken walls when we see
Good times rebirth on the crystals of nostalgic memory.
Then we say birthday parties should only remind us of our curse
In knowledge that in a wink our bravest sensations go to a pause.

With the stretch of time, we should not gather to party
Knowing with more calories burnt, with another wink we die.

WAR WORDS

Take raffia ropes to gird your scabbards
And tie ayei around your foreheads, ankles and wrists
For we must not bathe in the sun.

Strike the Ataye, gong it hard and sing songs of war
Africa is bestridden by laziness.
We cannot be totally wrong,
I mean we, our norms and values
Losing a cold blooded duel to imperialism;
Losing her etiquette and originality to alien life.

When last did mermaids grace our shores
Or fairies and spirits our festivals bless?
They had fumed and choke by industrial gasses
And intoxicated by the ill fragrance of Omo and Tura.

Now we can never find chocolates from Akure
I mean those chocolates the Ijebus ate and grew fat and healthy.
Where are the beautiful striped ankara from Ille-Ife
that seized the market in Lagos And Cotounou?
I mean those ankara in which rich and great Obas
were adorned with in Benin, Owu and Oyo;
Those ankara that were rushed stocks in Opobo.
Has not the renowned 'mangala fish' of Yenogua
Replaced with canned Geisha and Sardines?

A DANCE FOR THE KING

Topless ladies storm the occasion with dangling breasts.
A thousand years of reserved virginity
Disregarded for a old man who had already married twenty-five times
And tradition calls that he adds more to his harem.

Every year after the New Yam Festival
Eligible women from the four corners of the clan convene to this epic dance
And the king test if their virginity is still intact by observing their breasts
And the worthiest lady joins the King's harem.

Two years ago a man macheted a lad for dating his daughter
and ''ruining their family's future''.
Another young man was exiled into the evil forest and the spirits took his life.
The people took it as a religion. The religion consumed them.

The gods toy with man when he pays too much devotion to their fanatic rules
And according to history, this dance had done more harm than good.
Robbed people of their rights and edified the king into a god
That he had an ultimate right to everything.

A dance for the king and topless ladies storm with dangling breasts
Virgins! With a thousand years of reserved virginity
On a wasted show of an old man soon to make them widows
And they call it tradition.