He lies flat on the rooftop
looking at the stars.

Useless worlds birthing and dying
he muses
the colossal magnificence of waste

if atrophy is the verdict
why create a complex web of universe
just because someone from an island
would stare at them
in awe of the beauty
seeking a key to the riddle
himself a grain of dust
lost in reading the firmament
and not grasping
of what significance
he is
within his shrinking space and time
in an expanding universe.

The first 'Like' notification
Literally threw me over the moon
Now I can say I know what 'THE COW' felt
The first 'Humble' comment
Hit me right through my chest
I swear I died and went to heaven
Now I can say HE knows how grateful I am
The first 'Collection' addition
Welcomed me to a new country
Now I can say I know what it's like
To hold multiple citizenship
Since I landed on this planet of words
Its breeze hitting me  'hi' and 'hello'  
I can say I hear my name for the first time
And it feels like Poetry

                              © Belema .S. Ekine

May your heart be filled with Love.
Even with those that are hurtful to you.
Be not evil back at those evil ones.
But always Love others right back.
Be generous when you have it to be.
Share whatever you have with others.
Share your time helping those in need.
Show them Love, for this is the right thing to do.
Love upon them in anyway that you can.
I Love you all and am thankful for you all.

The sun arose and travelled across the horizon
dragging the morning into the afternoon.
It serenaded the motions of all that wondered beneath
its gaze. But its time was a choreography of passing
for even though it was a fixture in the skies it still
had to settle into motions of twilight.

Sister of the one that collected upon its setting,
he wove his glare in perpetual shading.
Where she gazed across the world, he climbed
on the footsteps of darkness. Only ascending
upwards never in motions to see all but to glimpse
on the womb that encompassed the shaded beauty
that was stationery below its gazes.

He wasn't like her bright in reflection, obscure
gazes of a vague aura that caressed everything in
a dullness of vision, but not to see within oblivion
that was painted on everything below.
Never was he offence in taking the luminosity of
what she had bathed before his arising. But like a
blanket he smothered it gently out of view.

She was patient in her slumbering, awaiting the
demise of her siblings arising. Never encompassing
on his moment even though when she had arisen he
would linger upon her view. A reflection of what he
was neither embodied in opaque surrounding.
Features of his pain viewed on the perception of
all that gazed above, seeing his sorrow lingering in
the illumination of a sibling.

"The light gazes in whispers upon the veil of twilight,

*"Cuddling in twilight respecting the others moment.

The old man mumbles in a dying voice
had my sons been alive.

A tear wells in the daughter's eyes.

She pours a spoon of water in his mouth
and wipes his lips and her eyes.

Having lit the pyre of his three sons
he was willing to barter his daughter's life
if that made God grant him another son
and here is the daughter by his bedside
feeding, cleaning and even shaving him
her only prayer to God being to save his life
bartering her entire means.

Outside the thunder cracks the sky
and she spreads a tarpaulin over the bed.

my son laments the father.

Inside her is no cover for rain.

Melancholy moments are weathered upon features,
furrows of my dejection descend from what'd  
evaporated now condensed in droplets of sorrow.

Caustic thoughts sting upon reflections merging    
before me, drowning within contemplation.
I see more in the rain than others see in a lifetime.

she passed her day in the sun gone

took up with the clouds in the sky

I guess

one day here I could touch

then just not here the next

where she went I long to know

but my heart went with her

then, and now

I never got to love the girl
she spreads wide her rainbow net
where the sky plunges on crystal river
tides swell to hide her shame
ebb to fill her bag of catch

I never got to love the girl
her hairs in the wind
my dreams spawn
a flower rising from the riverbed
she grants a love in my head
spreads wide her rainbow net
thru the long night of blue moonshine
her frock fills up with sparkling life

I never got to love the girl
could no way be the right match.

Socially Engaged Poetry

As an effective tool for advocacy
Creating partnerships and sharing skills
A voice to the voiceless, Split this Cliché
Empowerment to the empowermentless
Through bleats of provocation and witness
Copyrighted and stereotyped
In a World That is Forever 1968
Exploring and celebrating the many ways
We can score yet another guilt-grant
Asserting the centrality of the 501C3
Through bearing witness to diversity
As long as it behaves itself and thinks like us
Accessible and yet authentic
A n d l i k e d o s t u f f w i t h s p a c e l i k e u no

cause       spaces

                                 are authentic, and,
   like  


                 stuff
Poetry as a living, breathing art form
If you listen, you can hear its respirations
Gasping in the long, dark night of group-think
Obedient to a mission statement
And the careful construction of resumes
Committee integrate complexity
Formula dampens the authentic voice
Perform this vital work imagining
Personal and social responsibility
Revolutionary transformation
Write and perform this vital work support
Of human social justice experience
Grounded in holistic spirituality
Flouting the patriarchal something-ness
An act that requires community
If you love freedom, you dare not disobey
And let all the people say “Cogent!”