Truth be told
The old songs sound
Very, very old

Songs in moss
Are what come across
When I hear them play

Distant voices
Might bring to mind
Young love or a rainy day

But they seem covered with dust
Like silent nicknacks
On an old shelf

Or faded like pictures
Forever displayed
In halls inside of myself

Hiding within the air waiting for you to fumble just a little bit in the presence of your beliefs before it strikes is doubt. It is a stranger meddling with your heart.  
©Emeka Mokeme
Personal Glimpses

Why are you here,
i still keep
asking myself.

I know you are
not here to give
me some roses.

I know you are
not here to listen
to what i have to say.

I know how
it feels when
you are not wanted.

Is rejection
a part of love,
is it really
a part of life.

It is full
of horrible and
heartrending pain.

The kind of pain
my heart never
deserves or desire.

Like a broken rib
it hurts even more
when you breathe.

Only you can feel
the pain just like  
a sore thumb.

With shame
you hide behind
your skin.

Even with your
clothes on,
you still feel naked.

Confused as the
tortoise taken out
from its first habitat.

He's forever miserable,
because he can't
find its way home.
©2019,Emeka Mokeme.

You are the
most beautiful soul.

Your presence is
like healing itself.

I am so
grateful for the
space you have
created in my world.

Now i can more
easily acknowledge
my capacities.

This beauty was
just a contribution
to me yesterday.

Thank you
for what you
have showed
me today.

It showed me
oodles of stuff
I'd not noticed before.

This is the
beauty that came
with me on my walk.

A glorious adventure
with a blade
of light in my hands.

Today I was
surrounded by delights.

Today I was
gifted umpteen energies
to nurture and excite.

Today I was
rippling with gratitude
and proud of
what life has
accomplished of me.
©2019,Emeka Mokeme.

I

When we are still combating the problem of evil
With our vicious guns and metals of empathy
An invisible enemy much more clever and stealthy
Has been sneaking behind us
Suffocating us with the suddenly plenty
On this battlefield of seeking

We seem to be caught in between
Two grotesque foes, but are we really?
The gloomy autumn sky is covered with change
Perhaps we judged too early, unclearly-
The red leaves fallen with grace of leisure
Have obscured their countenance, and we see
Only a tattered fool holding a scythe of nothing
And a soldier looming with righteous perfection
Yet, perhaps behind their foliage masks
The fool has his brow raised with love and longing
Cherishing his tool for harvesting
While the soldier with his bullets ever ready
Smirks with an air of violence
Perhaps we have failed to distinguish
The unwanted, cleverly disguised humble friend
From the well dressed yet poisoned with greed, foe

II

Where I come from we used to send
The youth not to the land of plenty and above us
But to help the poor, those who after hard work
On the land, lie beneath a clear sky full of stars
Unwounded by the pale light polluting the cities
With nothing but the vast dome of possibility
The moon and specks lighting up nothing
But a heart full of hopes, love, and dream

Now we climb and climb
Till the new sprouts are already at the peak
Or they are struggling under the shadow
Of the giant trees
Unable to find higher climes
Or
Unable to break free from this lack of oxygen
Of the giant canopy of already achieved greatness

III

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Was not supposed to be experienced by us
In a couple of generations, in a couple of decades

And the speed of the waves of boom and bust
Of our stability and the longevity of great things
Is only getting faster and faster
In this ocean of constant rise and falling
In this new age
We lift up the logs above us so quickly
And then let them drown so rapidly
We are more like volcanic rocks
With so many holes floating, to ask to be filled
And when fulfilled, drown as we fill, purposeless
And empty

IV

Youth in both poverty and idleness craves for unrest
But those on top should never be opposed with
Proud antagonism
With cries of illusive victory the restless rush towards
The king who tied himself to the top rung of
The wheel fortunae
Who is yet unaware where his inertia leads
Till his destined demise as it turns
To lift up the newly rich
And the new enemy
The vicious cycle of wanting to be above all
When the unwanted truth is glad humility

V

The oak trees stable at its roots, undefeated
Sends us in leaves and birds chirping
A warning to heed that we are losing our depth
In our growth and rooting
For we have rarely seen the valley empty
Yet with all the space to fill with everything
And now live and dream on a slopeless plain
Some with it all and unable to hold anything
Some struggling to breathe under the shades
We are all waning, waning
For our fingers had never dug through the earth of life
With the desperation of the fear of being swarmed
By the dark clouds of timely locusts
Yet,
These wizened words are being scoffed
For being too connected to the past

Are we proposing to cut off the rope
Connecting us to the very beginning
Just so we could get faster to the end
To the depth of this pit
Where no traveler would truly return
Without the past guiding
And we will fall again and again
Ever repeating

VI

I was filled with guilt and despair
That while people are still with next to nothing
With no luxury and sometimes not even family
That when others try to bring them necessities
I can sit in cozy idleness writing poetry
Yet filled with nothing but shame and the empty
In a world less and less occupied with reading
Why I must be a poet sole and wholehearted

And when the missionaries
Send the doves through the screen
Asking for awareness and money
To support these bodies with nothing
I was suddenly filled with hopeless shame and pain
For only one thought echoed from the words said to me
"They have very little material things, yet they seem to be really happy"
And that was the way it used to be
That the suffered and now living with peace
Seems to recall with loving longing
With great sorrow and gladness, I ask you
Is it really monstrous to say they are in a better place than we
They have the most important things
Love, hopes, and dreams
And the nothing waiting to and could be
Filled with anything
While our shaded and sheltered youth
While we hold our cups full
Filled with useless glamorous materials of our own
Or
Constantly poured out for others to keep
Wailing for something more
And lasting

Conclusion:

At the core of our ever-hungry souls
We only really needed one thing:
To be filled with something.

Hopefully more permanently,
But nothing of materialism, or even rationalism
Last more than
A mirage of permanency
Even the century tree of sunset dunes
Eventually sets as whispering dust into the sand
And even the wisest man fades away
Into the senile body whose soul
Has already bid farewell
To this temporary land

I sought and sought
And only found that  
The Word is true
Only Love transcends time and space
The embrace between two condensed hearts
Of pure longing could exert
The gravity
And gravitational time dilation
Of such self-forgetful density
That would wrap entire fabrics of reality
Around us, immersing us, with brief
Merciful revelations and trials
Of the unfathomable
Eternity.

I look at the words
lying on the paper
And my heart begins to ache
I tried with much effort
But I see that
they're all fake
Somewhere deep inside
the torment does reside
Sometimes one has to accept
that the truth has arrived
Maybe the time has come
The one you ignored but feared
Every writer faces that day
The end to their
writing careers
I take a deep breath
as I look across field
still dreaming of that masterpiece
that to the masses would appeal
It's still all but willing to escape
But what more can I do
to alleviate the pain
when the words stop
flowing through