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AE  Nov 2020
Folktales
AE Nov 2020
Two withering souls
Lost in downtown fog
With their stories written in neon lights
And their destinies tied together
Gazing at each other
Through the reflection
Of blazing streetlights
In hidden puddles
Scattered around vacant parking lots
Dancing like ghosts
With honey on their tongues
A million longing words
Without ever uttering one
A sleeping city tells their tale
Of a longing moon and a loving sun
Ari L  Apr 2016
Silaw
Ari L Apr 2016
Philippine terrain? Tree-dotted mountains
and palms against dazzling blue skies
white-hot clouds, carabao
wild grasses in South Asian sunshine
Birdsong and church bells
folktales, legends from ancient hills
and rice paddies mirroring the heavens
Seven thousand one hundred and seven
eyes breaking waves to catch the sun
glimpses of hope – a glory to come
silaw (Tl.): (n.) ray, glare
Gabriel Aug 2020
I didn’t get the memo
to evolve -
stop sticking my hands
into the fresh-fire,
as if some part
of my visceral mania
wants to ****** my knuckles
with the ashes of Prometheus.

Every day that I don’t crash my car
is a white-hot remnant
of the suffocation of boredom,
like my life is on pause
until I’m nose down in a gutter
or in a line that I keep trying to cross.

There’s evaporated acid rain
condensing within every hangover,
each time the sun
rises; I rip down my fingernails
climbing to reach it,
gasping down
at the pulsating impulse
to make something terrifying
out of paper maché
and broken bottles
and bruised ego.

In every grave, there’s an I,
subtly watching
for the apotheosis;
a moment of sickly-yellow violence
igniting once more
any excuse for a fight
for fame,
for a feeling.
Something I wrote for a first year university creative writing class.
ConnectHook Sep 2015
Men of Reason: bold, progressive
hammer wielders, depth resounders –
shout from the helm your Godless missive
as our Bible-lifeboat flounders.

Send that Flying Spaghetti Monster,
our imaginary friend,
to the myth-conception dumpster:
let the Bronze Age folktales end.

Make the idols bow to Science.
Your progressive task: to mock –
seek that end in brave defiance.
Down with the shepherd’s useless flock !

Laser-focused human reason
serves to clarify the matter,
strips the symbols from the season,
superstitious tales to shatter.

We, mere rubes in need of crutches,
simple children, willing tools –
must be rescued from the clutches
of the fables preached to fools.

Seamless garments, bushes burning:
are but schemes for fleecing sheep…
We are plebes devoid of learning;
rouse our silly souls from sleep!

Flood us with your noontide wisdom
decimate the weaker link.
Blow away our card-house kingdom
show us Christards how to think.

Then, like you, we shall no longer
cling to ignorance and lies.
Missing links make chains yet stronger,
dragging fairies from the skies.

We shall join you in assurance
that there is no great beyond
thus no need for fire insurance
clergy, staff or magic wand.

We shall celebrate together
joyful, freed from superstition
endless, godless sunny weather:
non-existent non-perdition.

Having thus improved the light
and magnified Man’s modern day,
God’s angels will expire in fright;
the Lord shall meekly fade away.
Gemini pen Jun 2020
Theme: "Laughter for  Breakfast"
A Duet by:
Bard Oluwateniola Adeniyi (Faderera)  
Fuad Opeyemi (Gemini)  

A free Verse Poetry
🚹🚺🚹🚺🚹🚺🚹🚺🚹🚺

Quite a yore,  when the snail crawl in the open
The birds fly,  oblivious of the stone
The heart so calm,
Not threatening to break out of the rib cage
Yore,  when we have peace as the housewife
And laughter for breakfast
💪Gemini💪

Days are gone, when we arise at the hissing of the vulture,
When we patiently wait for the owl to hunt silently at night,
Or joyfully await the folktales of the aged,
And enjoy the moment of moonlight chit chatting while playing 'ayo'
👊Faderera👊

The thunder might clash
Storm may roar,  
But the breeze of tranquil,
Still find its way to soothe the raging heart
Indeed,  laughter for breakfast
💪Gemini💪

When we assemble at the manor to celebrate our unity,
Wine and dine without fear of being poisoned,
When we dangle our waist to the rhythmic beats and get autem,
Or twerk our butts to the sound of the music and not get *****
👊Faderera👊

Days,  when the crop rose,
To kiss  the morning light
Plants welcome the dew with joy
Felicity is brought to us on a platter
And the heaven smile its grace down
💪Gemini💪

Gone is the time, when we fall to our knees or one's face to greet,
When we have eros love to opposite gender not same gender..
When we honour the church and respect it's doctrine,
When giving wasn't a problem and kindness wasn't scarce
👊Faderera👊

Time so long,  when smiles glint through the eye
Danger not friends with darkness
The chain of slavery,
Not tied to our neck,  living fully
In a house not haunted
💪Gemini💪

Long gone are the days, when the richest man is one with a shilling,
and a pence could earn quality education and utilities,
When feeding wasn't a life taking occupation
Or shelter a life threatening need
👊Faderera👊

Now,  lost to the feeling of nostalgia
Giving knife to demon of today
On knees,  begging to be euthanized
Oh,  long gone are this days
When we had Laughter for breakfast
💪Gemini💪

Now,a shilling amount to nothing; even a pence is worthless,
The leaders now dish out war and serve themselves peace,
Corruption is now added to the list on our menu,
Our food isn't complete without massacre,
Favour is now amounted to cruelty or being diabolical...
Alas! gone are the days when laughter was for breakfast
👊Faderera👊

©Oluwateniola Adeniyi™
©Pen of A true Gemini™

Do Rate this piece of Art 🎭 🎭
Sukanya Basu  May 2018
The book
Sukanya Basu May 2018
Lyrics written on Church walls
Bashful lurking Lucifer,
Carved glazes of canker crawling on the mead
Drinking vile torments of men
Lucifer hath angel been
Spread wings of human fate
guided men on burlesque dives
through historic and futile rage
Drawing on lost and regained have never been thy aim
For jeopardy in art's name is nothing but a lost game
God and man and Vinci guise
And letters of un-earthly paradise
And decades of poetry sinned
To unmask man through lyrical films
Morte, life, determining naught
Empty pages of science and draught
Realms of here and realms of there
Realms that thy heart found rare
Antonym of fright being scare
Is not what man learnt through time
And there as courage behooves and
Life draws you to her
Death seems close in the arms of beloved
Pain, man's secret armour
bellows courage with a fake accent
Coming of seasons and dawn and light,
Poetic romance fretful sight
World naught ready to love and cherish
Human cans't broil feel
April as thy knows
A heavenly soul of a year,
Brewing rose, carnations and dew drops in time
A certain cotillion towards the other,
A light breathing when eyes met
Beyond the language of the celestial walls
Eve and Adam through bright colour meadows
I see as thy eyelids quiver from haunts of past
And as night descends the maiden shy
With light prance of the lion he prances
Flesh by flesh swoon by temptation
Drops of naive lies
promises of eternity
Battles of Brunanburh
Horses line up to a steady flame
Fishes swim in fleshy rain
Draining mouth of Paris gates
Writing pages of descent
And on with thy fire of the month,
November rose in the wild grass of beams
Battle lost and won it seemed
On another hill a maiden swept her hair
Through rosy gleams and eye of glass
And smiled like the forbidden apple of fate
Jumped like the lion
left in dismay
songs of despair
An orchestra of pain
Nightingale of death bellows of wind
On sunday the fifth he had sinned
she had cried and shown the rose
cigarette and smokes
of nothing proposed
Flesh be thy crime
heart be thy muse
Naughts had been reflected
in thy abuse
Stricken the horror bladder
Rose with dismay
And to **** the canker
in whom the ***** played
Alone within thy celestial walls of God, Goddesses and fate
Questioning thy holy spirit
the mistakes thy made
Entrusted with athenian history
Women bearing dagger
Human sentiments are evil
Lucifer is the rightful dowager
It's him who sheltered blue
Evil is romance
hardly to swoon
The right and wrong and sadness grief
If they see world of poverty
And happiness a myth
And now trumpets of war
And experiences blithe
To see the world anew
whom is right?
If Lucifer the fallen angel saw
what was yet to see
God is a liar and heaven's a greed
Thy stealth steal within bosoms canker
hate, ****, juvenile crime,
Crime is the way
to drive horrors in time
Human history baffles thee!
Social etiquettes and manners of glee
Whom to fool and whom to wrought
The lamb, the tiger a hated must
Angels, demons painted square
whom to whom the battles were?
The right of man to sin and begone
are fated dramas of life and forlorn?
Brew the evil and feed thy good
Awake! Arise! never be fooled!
And sadness a step,
sudden and dark
Thy unending stairs to heaven abased
Lonely as autumn arises and leaves gather
Memories of child and man
Memories of fated hand
Thy walks through
Matured, mind of steel
Anguish concealed
A heavy sigh of a grown mind
Scorns the happy girl
And laughs over her dead pearls
Mind of a grown self
Visits Celestial walls,
The temple, the bed the wrongs
The right is a foolish girl
Inside her body the birth of a new world
the falls the laughs the pain the demands!
The gunshot of life
The circle of hope
And nursing and growing the cherub of flesh
Is they mother nature with a man of crest
The moon as it shines, shows horrors no more
But in thy heart, a maiden sad
To loose all she ever had
But to gain life
and knead love
To love love and to grow above
Lucifer reads bedtime stories
God saves the crown of glory
Life smiled and played along
Death for death
and finding songs
Growing up in lilac storms
She learned to battle and grow a home
Keen on her *** to bottle dreams
Milk and bread is new it seems
Tyranny with a ****** sword
Knives it's prey as it creeps from it's door
But in white she clad and drew the sword at hand
Tears as bows it drew
Battle of ages seen never so shrewd
The good plot for her
The evil shined
Who art evil or good
She painted blind
She called her demons risked her God
She became human is sad of all
Thy maiden story once again read
The man who left
Evil has no name
So good naught trust
for good is thee
Good is evil
That had been set free
Whom to whom
And what to name
Should haunt the grave
or visit a pray
For to pray is a prey
And grave is a paradise
Questions she darted
With wide eyes
I showed thee card where black and white
Rose to fame side by side
God is lucifer
heaven is hell
Man made tricks on walls
For stories to tell
Man is mortal
desires are innate
Soul is thy spirit that lies awake
Death of life is a soul that plots
Stays on Earth in shallowed knots
To be beyond and to see the light
Have naught done that
Life is a sight
Not seen to man, if realised is beyond
To trust in fame is all that is done
Meekly shown courageous sprout
To do good or evil is a judgement about
The religious amenities made by man
To shun Lucifer is yet in thy hand
To pray him is a choice thus
But to prey pray has been man's lust
Again memories squint of thy maid on the meadows
Flesh on flesh haunts thy skin
Shallow breadths and mortal eyes
Rise beyond skies they speak
What sky what ground
What lava and heavenly abode
To grow old in folktales
Aside dusky shores
Man knows all
Man knows good
Good of man
Is a questionable truth
Man knows evil
Man knows crime
Man knows nothing
He is lost in time
Man knows man
is what tale they should
Write on walls instead of evil and good
Evil might harm
And good might ease
But man does both
And later he grieves
For grief hath no church nor temple nor mosque
Grief is inside man's chest
Pumping through his *******
Of Eve's fool and Adam's greed!
Of the canker of the holy grail
Of the lies he feed!
Who art to decipher life beyond life
When life is tormenting
even in it's sight
Who death, desert or leaves the soil
Who plants and grows in thy turmoil
Who loves and cares and makes thy life
Who saves who draws and pushes knives
Who grows and finds peace in thy self
Who plots and fails and satisfies and helps
Who prays and begs and trust in him
Who prays and begs and trusts in sins
What the sins, what the truth
Human beings are born aloof
To end to grow to die or to be born
Man hath no power to tell of or scorn
Man is a flick
Man is a pride
Man draws wars
Man lies
Man brings flesh
Man grows thee
Man dies tomorrow
Man is me.
Martina Ngose Jan 2015
I am Marhteena
I come from a small village in southern Cameroon where people use kerosene lamps at night and store drinking water in large aluminium pots.
where neighbors share kitchen utensils on a daily basis and eat from the same bowls of soup with one another.
where children go to the streams in the morning to fetch some water for cooking and rake the woods for some firewood.
where women go to their farms to plant corn, yams and vegetables while the men tap fresh palm wine and tend the goats and pigs.
where children play under the scorching sun and eat roasted grasshoppers for lunch.
where children make their own toys from rafiagrass and abandoned wires
where children climb trees and hunt birds with their catapults
where children go fishing with small bowls and learn how to swim by themselves
where children sat around fireplaces at night to tell folktales and ancient stories
I am Marhteena, i come from a very small clan but these experiences have shaped me into who i am today
I AM PROUDLY AFRICAN!!!
Honeydrops  Mar 2015
In memory
Honeydrops Mar 2015
It all seem like yesterday
When we all gathered round your bed
Kneeling for blessings,benedictions
And warnings to live as one

It all seems like yesterday
When you will rock me with folktales
Stories of how you won my mum
And the blessings attached to you as one

It seems like yesterday
When your advise cuddles me in my blues
Re inspiring my soul
With it streams words of gold

It all seems like yesterday
That the devil took your breathe away
Leaving us with a hole
Scars like tattoos
As we mourn in silence
And here,
we standing all in a dark shade of glass
Black gowns,black suits,black tie,in the rain
Spreading our ashes over you bossom rest
Blaming the devil for the theft of a good life

Though your pictures glaze our hearts
Furnishing it with your radiant smiles
The memory of you
We continue to cherish
As we hold today a remembrance of you.
#dear dad#honor a good life with your likes#
Drunk poet  Jul 2016
The lost boy
Drunk poet Jul 2016
Find me my only chap!
I saw him play with the kaleidoscopes
Right here
He left for the telescope
Over there
I noticed his cap on the sofa!

He must have gone to the playground
He love Rollercoasters!
Where I my only lad?
Did he go to play in the woods?
I stereotype he's lost!

Who will call me mother?
Who will  listen to my folktales
When the moon is out to dance?

Sun please shine!
When my nation cries out!  please wind
******* back to her!
Stephanie Frank Apr 2017
Dinners under the chandelier
Meaningless chatter and happy laughter
The delicious smell of quesadilla
Drifting through the air from the counter

Grandma rocking in a corner
Little ones sparked before her
Marveling at her skill with the needle
Entranced by the music from Grandpa's fiddle

Stories by the moonlight
Folktales by the fireplace
Connecting dots with the starlight
Losing track of time in space

She never knew the word 'pain'
Then she felt the pain of death
Till the betrayal of Cain
Till she craved the high of ****

Now pain is all she knows
Pain in all forms and doses
Be it through bullets and blows
Or even the thorns of roses

She's grown so used to it
It's started to feel normal
She's grown so accustomed
Without it she's incomplete

As she sits near the cliff's edge
She dares to think of happier times
As she uses her foot as a wedge
She remembers the oven clock's chimes

She remembers mama's cookies
Her favourite was chocolate
She remembers papa's banters
And Nana's beliefs in fate

She recounts Grandpa's pipe
His delicious mixed smells of tobacco and old person
That must be where the crave started
Her crave for the high of forgetting

As the nostalgia washes over her
She dares herself to cry
She removes her footed wedge
And begins to fly

As she flies she feels nothing
Only an empty fortress
A fortress filled with echoes
Echoes of happiness
So here it is, my first piece this year. Hope you like it. Tell me what you think.

— The End —