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Some people can wait
     Before they die;
Hold on for a loved one
     To say Good-bye.
To have one more Spring,
     Or any Season,
For Love or Closure,
     This we reason.
Now many can leave
     This coil of doubt,
Guilty they heard,
     On all thrity-four counts.
All praise to the New York Justice System. Well-done.
 Jun 2024 Emmanuel Phakathi
izzn
In these lines I read you as lullaby
In these pages I wrote you in hindsight
In these details I exorcised evil lies
In these anthologies, this is where I hide
You're a better poet than me
You may never know
Hello Poetry.
Monday,
We woke up looking perfect, right?
Tuesday,
We're kind to everyone cause it's what we love to do, right?
Wednesday,
Put extra makeup on to hide the evidence of last night's beating, cause if anyone found out they'd laugh and tell us to **** it up, right?
Thursday,
We laugh because crying ruins our image, right?
Friday,
. . .I got in a fight.

I don't know about you but even on the moon's brightest nights,
it's still got a dark side,
Maybe we don't always see it, but it's there,
So don't judge me when I miss the mark on "perfection"
.Loving you
Is a sinking ship
And as I bail water out
You pour bucket after bucket
Right back in
.

.It won't be long now till we're treading water.
Our love is a given.
Precise! Succinct! Intentional And Directional!!
WE speak in one voice and we stick to the rhythm and tone of our voices.
Our voice  are devices
Music to dance to and feet to swerve.
Yes! we will swell and swerve to this rhythmic  tunes and turns of our collective voices.
And like David of the Great Book we will dance fearing no nakedness.
This given love will strive Omalicham.
Omalicham is an Igbo language expression to mean my beautiful .
We're ill.
We are not ready,
to See a doctor.
Nigeria need a doctor
 Apr 2024 Emmanuel Phakathi
Zywa
For 5,000 years,

people have been dreaming, will --


they ever wake up?
Novel "Midnight's Children" (1981, Salman Rushdie), chapter 2-9 "The Kolynos Kid"

Collection "Low gear"
I was desperately drunk and desperately in love.
    I made promises I couldn't keep. She invited me
    into her garden. I ate forbidden fruit. Nirvana!
    Pains, doubts, anxieties, fears gone instantly.

    The morning after had a sour taste.
    God and priest and nun and catholic world
    collided with our promised land of love.
    We stayed drugged with flesh and defiance.

    Pregnant, we were married in the Church.
    We had our daughter and a son soon after.
    I wish lust didn't fade with time.
    I wandered and became a cliche.
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