i fell in love
with the girl you were
(who made my mornings
beautiful)
then you changed
and became my nightmare.

I came to agree with Charles Darwin
When my eyes opened wider as I came of age
And I saw how the world worked
Realizing that it was deeper than what people said
About my race in life being unique from my neighbour’s
And what my religion teaches
Coupled with the enormous faith it demanded
Asking me not to question the obscure answers
But life remains what it is and the truth remains the truth
Although it could be heartbreaking if misunderstood

Life has always been a cryptic puzzle
Destined to be deciphered step by step
To be understood little by little across generations
One continuing where the previous stopped
This was the birth of philosophy and science
Bodies of rebellion that seek
To answer the questions and question the answers
Why in the track of life, evil travelled faster than good

I came to agree with Charles Darwin
When I looked at life and saw that it was indeed
A ring where only the fittest survived
So what hope was there for the weak?
    what hope …………..for the weak?
And a voice answered saying
Faith! They will believe and hold on to their belief
Their prayers and belief may or may not become
But they will be comforted by their belief
In the things they can feel but do not see

This life too is full of malpractice
And the righteous are at a disadvantage
The world is also full of unkindness
That when the kind bends to help a fallen one
Get back on his feet, he gets kicked
On the head by the same person he elated
And he would look back to a cruel memory seeing
That his kindness was a ladder
With which he elevated his Judas
The world is a place where one becomes pragmatic
even with kindness
To avoid being kicked in the head

The journey to our heart desires is a race
The world is racing away with everything good
Only the strong and opportune wrestle enough from her
In this continuous race that never ends
Some people fall off by the road side
And kindness could be a weakness to the needed focus
But everyday a miracle happens, people take chances
To uplift others, defying the law of nature
Yet there are casualties

I came to agree with Charles Darwin when I saw it
That life was this programmed race track
That thrived on the principle of survival of the fittest
And evolving into this state of mind,
I have seen that evolution
Is not only what I see in my biology textbooks
But it was the principle that guided life.

When you came into the picture, I
Felt the pieces of my life's puzzle
Scattered before your advent
Fall in the right places.

As I look back now, I can
See how God had held a lily
And stretched it's beauty towards me
Dealing me an appealing gesture, an

Invitation to behold your splendour, A
Path to a place where happiness blooms
Like lianas in a beautiful bougainvillea
From where I was ushered into the eyes

Of Venus. My pains were stung
With fangs of happiness
Then I beheld your smile
And walked straight into the arms of love.

I have known sadness
When in the solitude of my dark room
I looked to the blank ceiling, my mind
Impregnated with alien emotions
Seeing that the happiness I used to know
Has scampered off to a phantom horizon—
Untouchable….

And that she who used to be my lover
Has become a ghost of memory that haunts me
And I have been divorced from the colours of splendour
With which she like the artist
Once painted my world like a canvass
Into a cathedral filled with angelic oblation
Of a children choir chanting latin hymns

Now, happiness is buried in a tomb-like quiet
Covered by heavy stone of abstract thoughts
Surrounded with my heart’s frightening silence
Further worsened by her—death—to whom my thoughts
Are now betrothed, who bids me to join her
As she comes into my head every dusk
Dressed like a charming bride to lead me out
Through a door, she and she only offers.

I can't fit my feet into
your shoes. So, I do
not know where it itches.

I haven't walked on your
heels. So, I do not know
how it feels to walk on
the roads that you walk.

I have not struggled to
unshackle those chains
that have for so long held
you captive. So, I do not
know how it feels to fight
your battle.

When I look at you, I see
sweet laughter fermented
into sour smiles as you try
to turn your back against
the world. The scars you
carry are a souvenir of the
many injuries you incurred.

And although I haven't
passed through your
experience, I can look into
your eyes and tell you this;
"I feel your pain".

Darling,
Everything becomes beautiful around you.
This miracle repeats itself
all the time in your presence,
Just like yesterday evening
when i held your hands,
& we took a stroll along the park.
There, ordinary noises
like the buzz of the evening breeze
& the chirping of crickets
convalesced into a sound like music

Talking and laughing to each other,
it was as though we exchanged contents
of our hearts and you had just what i needed
and needed just what I had,
and when night came around,
as we walked back home,
it was as though the moon and stars
have discovered a new way to shine
Darling,
everything becomes beautiful around you.

i
  am a poet
  who pretends
         to have  f                    so i can e
                         a                                    x
                           l               e                      t
                            l            v                          r
                             e         o                            a
                               n in  l                                c
                                                                           t
                                                         the necessary
                                                             emotions
                                                           for
                                                       writing
                                                           a
                                                   love poem

each time you cross my mind
i think about a magic that has lost it’s effect,
i think about ecstasies i can no longer feel

i remember the days i lay on my bed
half hour longer than i woke up
my thoughts focused on you
and enjoying the chills they gave me

i remember how i caught myself smiling
as i thought of our times together,
how i pretended not to hear you
when you talked about your boyfriend
because you were a dream too good to let go

i remember how i reread our chats
and tried to draw a map inside my head
of the connection you said you felt
that made our lengthy conversations fluid

i remember how i thought everybody
who bears the same name as you a darling
because you gave the name a new meaning
and i wondered for long; where the charm lay
in your smile, vivid in my remembrance?
or your laughter that reechoed in my ears?
or how in a crowd you seemed in my eyes
like a star forging among dark clouds?

but most times, the good things do not stay;
these days i am awoken to the storms
on the grey side of life
and every madness has lost it’s magic
every line of love, blurred
but one thing is sure; i miss loving you.

for muna

my dear one, I have learnt this;
that even hills crumble
and a path surfaces
where once there was no way;
it is called a miracle

do you know that life
is in two shades of paradoxes
every event carries a parallel lesson,
every shadow is cast by an adjacent light,
that these pains you feel
are a consequence of the advent of healing,

in the evenings when the setting sun casts silhouettes
upon our views,
it is the knowledge from within
that assures us of our intact wonders,
that we are more than we seem

we are lanterns
the light in us only needs the oil of belief to glow..

you are on a journey,
you may seem discorded,
everything may seem like an entropy,
you may seem to have lost your grip,
you may be lost,
everything may seem so dark now,
but remember your light,
the one that lives in you,
remember belief is the axe that breaks the dormancy of it,

darling,
breathe and believe
and let the seed of your light germinate
into the dawn of discoveries,
for nothing is hidden from the eyes of light,

for when you become light,
all that you seek shall come
rushing to you like nocturnals.

once upon a time
i lost my light
and had been threading in the dark
when I stumbled upon light
and walked unhesitant towards it
because it was all i needed
that light was yours,
i saw them not with my eyes
but I felt them with my heart
they helped me light up again

yesternight, i came closer
to your humanity,
you allowed me into the secret of winds
disturbing the calm of your sea,
i came upon the full details
of your darkness and imperfections
and i loved you all the more
because in every darkness
that inhabits you,
my light has found a purpose.

obim,
the most beautiful thing about loving you
are the things i learn about love;
how it can be synonym for wings
and how loving the right woman
was a metaphor for flying, higher
than all the hurdles that used to be a blockade

igosirim na ihu n’anya bu ije
you taught me that love was a journey
and one with purpose
so that it explained a reason
for holding on to life
when difficulties scatter all over
like question marks on a blank sheet
the love we shared became the answer
that explained the destination
at the end of the obscure roads that life was

obim, loving you made me into a philosopher
that searched for optimism
in the unlikeliest of places which turned out
to be the most beautiful

because everything becomes beautiful around you
and when we are out together at night,
I see the face of hope, redressed
in the twinkle stars far up in the sky
when we walk around the parks in the evening,
I perceive music in the chirping of crickets
when we hold hands as we walked together
and you press mine, I feel myself melting into you

it is not that the problems of life go away
sometimes, they come knocking on my door
dressed in their intimidating doses
then I remember, it is you who shares this path with me
and that love is a synonym for wings
and loving you, a metaphor for flying past hurdles
so I fasten my seatbelts and fly
obim, loving you is a safe journey through these rough roads.

i am listening to a song

sitting alone on this sofa,
where together we once sat
a piece of the headphone on my ear
the other piece on your ear
as we listened to this song-- the song that flashes before me
all the memories of our days together
when we sang along and demonstrated
these emotions to each other
and your smiled mirrored a beauty
that I can't find words to describe
just that slices of beauty lay embedded between the closed spaces in your teeth

the only solace i can wrap my arms around
is the memories, so, i come back listening to this song
as i embed my mind deep on the visuals
of flash backs made audible
by your ringing laughter in my head-
the light your kiss brought
illuminates my heart
it is a mirage realer than a mirage--
what is formed by memories from this song

yet it is this mirage of a memory that
gives me the comfort of a shade away
from the desert of your absence

believe me when i say:
"I don't want to get this headphones off my ears"
it is the only thing that hides me from the monster, 'reality'... but for how long?
as the monster soon breezes in like
a slap in the face
waking me from my sleep into the sweet voyage of your memories

i think about picking up the phone
i want to ask you to bring back those days
i want to ask you to make this memories real again
then i remember where you have gone
then a dark cloud befalls my eyes.

going away from home
is the best way to realise
that indeed, there is
no place like home

Darling,
When you look at me, I really hope
That beyond mask of a smile on my face,
You will see the sad little boy in me
Who has lost his place and is seeking to return
But the small world has become so large for him
He is yet unable to find his way home

When I look at you, I really hope
That beyond the love that twinkles in my eyes
You see a boy whose heart life has broken
into smithereens of sorrow and pain*
And within me, there is a dead dream that I mourn
Every time it crosses my heart, my head burrowed
in pain

Each time, I try to help you find the light, I am
Only trying to find mine by helping you find yours
I am seeking the face of God in you
I want to discover in you, a new religion
And let it guide the path of my life
To a special kind of light that hovers around you
\
Every time I dream of you, a new dream
Wakes up in me, I see myself in a new path
Walking in fresh hope and renewed vitality,
Every time I kiss you, I want to crawl
Into your mouth of goals and reach for them
Like a well measured shot seeking the goal post

Every time I feel the painful memories of past dreams
Traffic through my head, I switch my mind to you
Because you are my rediscovery of everything
I thought that was lost never to be found again
Do not deny me access to any path that leads to you
For your heart has become the home to my dreams

I find myself speaking with God
In the company of my solitude;
As though he is present in the long walks
along paths lined with trees
Where the only noises are those of leaves of trees
rustled by the wind
And the only voices are those of birds
Who lend their beaks to the wind
As though I was another Adam
Searching for God’s footstep
As I walk over the garden
Muttering the litanies of my sins and imperfections
Ruing all that I have done which I should not have
And all I didn’t do which I should have done
Wondering what became of the little boy I once was
And how I seem like a sea
Where fragments of a sank ship floats
And the remnant of his innocence is scattered about
Like  flotsam, impossible to reassemble

I let God listen to the pains in my voice
Of being a failed sailor
Drowning the sojourners who gave me trust
Yet my second journey remains uncertain
And not-in-tandem with the wind

There is no healing for me in the world
I already added iodine to her wounds
In her pains, she screams at my conscience
And I recoil into my solitude on this solitary path
And I find myself speaking to God in my heart,
Where I find him

Sometimes a poet's muse
                            comes

          e
        r
   ­       r   a
               t  
               i c
              a
             l
               ly



like     a
           puzzle
                           s  c  a  t  t  e  r  r  e  d
on
          the            marble
            
        of
                      his
                               imagination
    

       then
                   he
picks
              his     quill
with

                 his
                          witty
hands
                      
and arranges
his  thoughts
into a poem.

Your smile.
.
endlessly,
my heart  searched
for a vibe on another
heart with which to
resonate and found none.
finding none, it  wandered endlessly like
Infra-red rays seeking a
suitable tempo upon which
to strike an interference.
i  wandered in search of a fertile
land in a heart upon
which to grow seeds of
love, my head burrowed
deep in a shell of
restlessness...
.
but on that fateful day,
too-good-to-be-true was
your smile--- it caused
my eyes to twitch,
borrowed a beat from my heart, transforming my
thoughts to an ode-- a
prelude to better days
.
i still see that smile,
lucid--- your lips opening
like windows of love,
revealing shiny white
louvres of beauty (teeth)
which opened to your
tongue-- a valley flowing
with sweetness as it
goes down your palate
like a parting curtain
welcoming love... then
you said "hi".
.
this friendship began with a smile,
it deepened with the " hi"
.
i have tapped from the
happiness let out from
the windows of your heart--
your smile..
my heart no longer wanders, in your smile,
it found rest
.
my greatest wish is
to make this smile mine
someday,
plant a kiss on your lips,
the happiness that
dwells in there becoming
a remedy to my malady.
.
.
Chukwudera Michael

In my nightly solitude
When you are not next to me,
Everything
                    w  h  i  s  p  e  r  s
                            to me
                    and every time
           I strain my ears to hear them
                I behold your name
                           f                                      
                               l
                                   o
                                     a
                                        t
                                           i
                                             n
                                                g
                                     In the wind

You let a poet fall in love with you?
And you have fallen for him as well?
Do you want your name to be imprinted
in eternal scrolls, and passed like a baton
from generation to generation in the grace
of his lines?

Do you want your beauty, smile, soul, grace
And every good thing you exude
To be captured into metaphors encrypted in his poems?
Do you want to live in the heart of all and sundry
who loves the poet?

A poet is a high priest on the sanctuary of oral oblations,
who captures both mortal and immortal hearts
With the charm of his craft,
His muse proceeds from everything that touches his heart
For in his heart, his poetry beats
The poem is the life of the poet

So if you touch the heart of a poet,
The prints of your soul becomes an indellible residue
An article of his hearty professions
Of timeless words that reverbate endlessly
Beyond his mortality and yours
Now, did you just say you let a poet
Fall in love with you?