"Christmas in Gaza"

 "Christmas in Gaza"

Look beyond the prejudice in the news reports

And see our little peaceful town 

Caught in a whirlwind of blasting bombs and chattering guns.

Look there, 

a young mother with an amputated arm wails over her dead two year old

Caught by a bullet shot with precision.

Our streets are littered with the breathless heaps of our young men,

Fighting to repel a blind ravaging bull.

Our old men weld machine guns,

with their near-to-dead sights.

Blinded by both rage and age.

Fighter Jets fly over heads

Heading for our abandoned homes.

They open their dark anus

And empty their waste on our homes

Turning everything dear to rubbles.

The sick, 

The wounded, 

And the maimed litter our refugee camps

But there is no physician to tend a plagued nation 

Our physicians are now fighters.

"The war must be won!" they say.

I miss the serenity of the nights spent at home,

I miss the bedtime stories and the peaceful renditions of prayers to Allah,

I miss the excitement of our playgrounds,

I miss the clattering of cutleries on plates filled with delicious meals,

I miss the peace we shared with all its colourful forms,

Before this strange night cast its haunting shadows on us.

Dedicated to all the people of Gaza. I pray the war ends soon

© Poetry

©Emeka Collins

"She is"

 "She is"

The earth is blind.

I must say that the earth chose to be blind.

Because how can anyone not see how she toils away at her task?

Morning, afternoon, and even at night.

Was it nature or men that tossed it on her?

Because she seems so peaceful in her storm.

With the rising sun, she sets out

Like the mother hen to search for daily bread.

Many said she has a lazy head

Who depends on the crumbs from her troubles.

While he folds his hands in his chest

And makes jest of her with his friends.

Morning, afternoon and night

She toils away at her task.

Hoping and praying that fortune would smile back at her.

And ease the weight on her shoulders which weighs heavily on her.

She manages to smile through her pains,

For daily she has to wear this mask.

The hope of a mother is in her labour

Like a patient farmer 

She sows her seeds at all season

She guards it to ensure that none is missing.

For everything giving to her by God

Both Woes and worth

Nothing should be missing

Even when they might not miss her when she is gone. 

"The Poem and the Poet"

 "The Poem and the Poet"

I wrote you a poem.

Yes, I wrote you a poem

It was neither to mourn you

Or call you.

But to announce my retracing steps back to my shell.

Where I once was till your beauty wooed me.

I ran leaving my senses aside

But bearing burning emotions in my heart.

It was tender. 

It needed to be tended. But it died in the heat of neglect.

"Believe Love"

 "Believe Love" 

I could sing you a million melodies,

Of where our hearts met,

Through the rough roads of unrequited love

To a place where we sits gracefully on a throne: the thrones of our hearts. 

Your face shone through the unwavering shadows,

To kill this darkness that held my soul captive.

It wasn't freedom at last

But freedom that will last through this new found joy to eternity

Where we will at last know love without doubts.

"The Long Arm of Love"

"The Long Arm of Love"

 In a world wrapped in chaotic darkness

Unexplainable to the human mind

I will be your sea of tranquil affection

Where you can plunge in your mountain of pain 

And watch them melt like ice in a bowl of heat.

Keeping your eyes on your scars 

Are blindfolds to what the future holds

Which restrains your feet from climbing the  peak of your dreams

So unbolt your stars 

And draw a canvas of sparkling lights in the sky. 

Yesterday has had its way

Let's today have it say

While we steer through the darkness

With hope as our light.

"Friday Mourning Prayer"

 "Friday Mourning Prayer"

At the wake of dawn,

As drowsy bodies were yet to stir their tired whole.

They come upon us suddenly,

Like hungry swarm of locusts,

With machetes, arrows, and guns,

Thirsty for blood at no cause,

Blinded by the blurry slides of religion and tribalism.

They shot sporadically at scampering children,

And ripped bare the hearts and tummies of pregnant women.

Brave men who dared to resist their savagery

With bare arms and sticks were butchered like festive holy rams.

Bodies were piled up like heaps of sacrifice to a brute god.

This massacre went on till the sun was forced out of hiding

By the foul smell of burnt flesh and blood

As the perpetrators disappear like the morning mist into their religious huts 

To observe their daily prayers.

"Our Votes will Count"

 

"Our Votes will Count"

The sugarcoated party slogans and their fattened promises,

The lies mingled with a drop of truth and the multiple posters that smear the faces of our streets,

The feigned smiles with a generic pose of hope, 

The crowd pulling campaigns and the brandishing of the magical party wands,

The quickly arranged sombre songs of hope with shameful dance steps to mesmerize the faithfuls,

Some standing transfixed in the scorching sun, other swaying their waists and stamping their feet on the dusty ground for paltry wraps of notes

While the big men hide in raised platforms smiling broadly.

It is the most coveted season,

In the life cycle of a state

When like a snake it should shed its old skin for a new look.

But here the new is old,

Same old faces,

Same old lies,

Same old weary promises,

Everything is old.

The hope locked in the PVC

Is simply the more you look, 

the less your wishes grow

Elections are done in the morning

And selections at night

They cling voraciously to power

Like blood-thirty parasites

But after every duel that leaves us with tired faces

The radio presenter reminds us that one day our votes will count.