Inside Literature presents three new poems from a fresh literary mind, young Prescott Egbo and one old poem from a veteran poet, Niyi Osundare.
As you read, pay attention to subject matter. What different concerns do we see in the works of these poets separated by at least, 50 years age gap?
Enjoy!
*Choking*
By Prescott Egbo
_*on a flu of deception…*_
Lies are ties
Keeping us bound to peeping.
Conscious and conscience
Railtrack of guilt runs across.
Spilled stew everywhere,
Our lives become slippery hives
Large pile buying fear of kissing earth’s tile.
Woven thread pies,
We feed peers in pairs
Going on and on
To flow along
Amnesia to tracks drawn on field
Which replay at each relay.
What seems as play
Karma turns to clay
Frail to break when liquid slay
Broken and sour, identity crashes.
Casted!
We become spread as net cast into sea
Cut up fishes.
Liers!
Mashed up snitches.
Sly asses!
Make for stitches and change
Before cans become sealed in wait
For ravaging pot of stew.
*@Prescot_e*
*#BlotDrop*
Despair
By Prescott Egbo
*_…To a thousand men and teenagers who are molested, marginalized, and oppressed even while struggling to secure a one square meal…there is hope for the future…_*
Unto us, oh peasants!
will I pour down rains of hope.
We who adore the pleasants
Yet, restrained by feeble lope.
We plough relentless
Shattered! We feel up foreign barns
Groaning! We’re fed resentment
Choking! Our weary hearts to bitter yarns.
On barren lanes we tread with sores
Standing, bending, kneeling, begging for crumbs from the master’s table
Yet unruly dogs, too blind to see bleeding pores
Growl at us ’till an embrace with death’s cable.
May heavens’ cloud of witness
shed tears upon our lofty hearts
As angels with joy grant us fitness
Handing over to us hopeful carts
Grape to Rape
By Prescott Egbo
*_…a cocktail of screwdriver_*
Screw your pain
Down with stains
Fruitless bay
Drown in spirits
Cock and tails
Hole and squeezes
Omo tan wa
Kike labi
Finely processed and pruned
Translucent and fierce
The climax of manly gathering
Home bartenders too blind to caution
Crashing figures
Clear thin liquid tickles down as milky pleasure
Once juicy innocent citrus
Now rapped in world’s cruelty
Diluted!
Normalcy becomes driven dormancy
Inflammation gives fame to abdomen
Till a stare into a notice
”Beware: you are highly explosive”
*-@Prescot_e*
#BlotHub
ABOUT THE POET
Prescot Egbo is a passionate Creative Artist that has distinguished himself as one of the imaginative and exceptional literati of this era. He has written so many articles and poems and was recently nominated for best writer in the CADA Awards 2018. An undergraduate of the prestigious University of Lagos, he is the co-founder of the Blot Drop Productions, a literary house that convenes writers’ conferences, readings amongst other things. He is also a Creative Director and Stage Manager of several stage productions including “Arms and the Man”, “Soyinka in the Eye of Shakespeare”, “Our Son the Minister”, “Come and be Going”, “Death not a Redeemer” amongst others.
Hole in the Sky
By Niyi Osundare
(Choreo-poem. Preferably with musical accompaniment, the tempo varying according to the mood and meaning of each section)
Eco-Snaps
i
Koko gbakokodi
Koko didikokodi*
“Tell my story,”
Said the Earth to me,
“Oh, tell my story the way it is.
Don’t sugarcoat its bile
Don’t varnish its rust
Don’t cover its scars with pretty words
Tell my pain the way it is
The way it is
The way the way the way it is
Tell my pain, the way it is.”
Koko gbakokodi
Koko didikokodi
ii
The day the river caught fire
And the lake burnt like Devil’s oil
The mountain coughed like a broken giant
The sky’s eyes were red with grief . . .
Plants whose lethal spills provoked the plague
Lay fortressed behind the hills
Ayekooto† sighted their owners
On their way to the city bank
Koko gba kokodi
iii
Ever heard fruits arguing between the leaves
Over which got the deepest dose
Of the pesticidal plague?
The poison killed the pest
And later buried the people
Koko gba kokodi
iv
The thunder of the sea
Rattles the silence of the sky
Wailing whales wonder about their woes
The deeper the dolphin dives
The shallower its desired relief
Koko gba kokodi
v
The desert marches towards the sea
The desert marches towards the sea
Fire in its eyes
Mayhem in every movement
The desert marches towards the sea
With camel-loads of broken skulls,
Roasting iroko‡ trees for lunch
The mahogany for early dinner.
Dandelions roar beneath its feet.
The elephant grass has lost its tusks
To the famished poacher from sandy regions
The desert marches towards the sea
Alas, the boundless rainforest of my youth
Has shrunk to a frightened eyebrow
On the forehead of the coast
Koko gba kokodi
vi
The midday sun
Cannot see its face in the lake
The turquoise sea is yellow
From the poison of upland plants
The day they killed a tree
In the ancient forest
The chainsaw left a dirge
On the lips of the leaves
There is a bird in my heart
Craving for a perch on the absent tree.
Koko gba kokodi
vii
Seasons of omen:
One-legged frogs
Babies with missing arms
The grass’s green laughter
Has yellowed into sickening groan
Vengeful droughts digest the fields
Koko gba kokodi
viii
A hole
A hole
A blazing hole
In the garment of the sky
Oven-hot summers
Winters blind with ice
The Arctic melts like butter
As rising oceans consume the land
Fog-fraught cities grope
Beneath their fuming factories
The rain falls, acid,
On frightened forests
The Earth we used to know
Is once upon a time
A hole
A hole
A blazing, blinding hole
In the garment of the sky
Koko gba kokodi
ix
Trumpet sounds in the horizon
Green intimations unfurl the wind
Healing needle to the hole in the sky
Earth’s Redemption Army
Is gathering strength beyond the clouds.
Trumpet sounds behind the mountains
Green intimations unfurl the wind.
Koko gba kokodi
Koko didi kokodi