Open the door, gateman
Open the door for me
Break out of dream if you can
It’s long since you slept to lullaby.
I know you’re tired
Of counting each grass in the park
It’s not what you aspired
The drowsy trills of the lark.
You surely have no clue
Here amid the flowers
With so little to do
Why counting the weary hours.
In the summer’s burning glow
Your sweats bring dazed dreams
And knowing the winds won’t blow
Your surround in despair dims.
Open the door, gateman
Open the door for me
Get out of dream if you can
From the delirious lullaby.
For once show me your eyes
Where the dreamy slumbers loom
Amid flowers grown in sunrise
Seeding flowers that won’t bloom.

My poems attest
That I lived
     As I
          For them.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I hadn't expected someone there
already before me.

Only lonely men come here
I heard him through my heavy breath
lonely with nothing and everything.

Down there was the sea rumbling faintly
with the froths painting themselves on the shore
like a sketch in a child's drawing book.

Height does amazing tricks, the man continued,
makes you feel invincible
stimulates you to be ****** into gravity
to fall as light as the feather.

The dusk was wrapping up the light
when I remembered having promised her
not to be late to descend.

There's a man up there, I told the gateman,
Nope, he said,
you were the only guest this evening.

There's a tale that's spoken
When dawn has broken
By gateman and watchmen and guards
And it's echoed by thieves
As the night time leaves
As they shuffle their crooked cards

Of a demon disguised
And a doctor despised
So be weary of coaches at night
There's a roaming physician
Of the devils tuition
A curse and a bringer of plight

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The butcher of Leicester
A man with a hunger for pain
With top hat and tails
And talon-like nails
There are many he's happily slain
He travels by night
And is fast out of sight
And away by the first light of day
He takes eyes and ears
As grim souvenirs
And your body is left on display

It's said he was born
With a singular horn
Which he uses to gouge his prey
And my grandmother swears
He was brought up by bears
Which he killed in a grizzly display

He's a magical voice
A remover of choice
To beguile the strongest of wills
He can tear you apart
And pull out your heart
So quickly the blood never spills

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The gory molester
An animal dressed as a man
If you hear him approach
In his ebony coach
Then away just as fast as you can
He feeds on the weak
On souls of the bleak
And seekers of fortune and strife
He removes your afflictions
Diseases, addictions
As swiftly he cures you of life

He has eyes in his ears
So he sees what he hears
His teeth once belonged to a snake
The soles of his feet
Don't meet with the street
Not a print or a sound does he make

There are maps of strange lands
On the palms of his hands
And thick purple hair on the back
There's a bat in his hat
All sluggish and fat
For if ever he fancies a snack

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The mayor of Chester
And prince of the circles of hell
He giggles and gloats
As he fiddles with goats
He dabbles in chickens as well
A spaceship he flies
Through Lancashire skies
He can turn you to gold with a kiss
He's a ghost driven mad
By his alien dad
And.... Are you TOTALLY sure about this?

Now he was standing on the border.

He heard his own voice say

this deadly option reconsider

also heard it say

your hunch can betray

so can your sense

pause man before you travel the distance.

No, he wouldn’t listen to that voice

having made the choice

not anymore to defer

what deserved the woman that wronged her.

She was giggling and saw no harms
when he picked her up in his arms.

The rock python smelled flesh falling from the sky.

You have to die he whispered you have to die.

The gateman was dozing and no eyes had watched him.

*He must now run away from this bad dream!

BLACK*

I am black coz I walk under the sun all day!
I am black coz my anger dictates my tone!
I am black coz the police is my friend!
I am black coz ave swam in gutters and bath in rains!
I am black coz I rode tires and felt excited!
I am black coz mummy and daddy was my favorite game!
I am black coz of chike and the river!
I am black coz my best haircut was skin punk(molo)!
I am black coz I never wrote 1jamb!
I am black coz unilorin was always my 1st choice!
I am black coz OMO is what we call all detergent!
I am black coz of my village people!
I am black coz I tried making my own Airtime!
I am black coz every Noodles is indomie!
I am black coz I believe in God but juju is a back up!
I am black coz all shoe makers are aboki!
I am black coz ur fada is a big insult!
I am back coz up NEPA is a joy giver!
I am black coz I dnt shout back at my parents!
I am black coz I always go on strike!
I am black coz every Musa is a gateman!

I am black not because the mirror nor my skin tells me that but because I have experienced all this.

Black is not a colour but an identity!!!

                   *Ojuolape Isaac Mfa

My teacher is dead
The crackling by the classroom walls
The chalks along the hallway

The faded voices of students
The heroes of methodist high school
Repository of rejected talents
A born-throwaway
Accepting history's defeat

Exile
Our principal's cowardice
Lineage of shoes
The assembly ground we all marched

Uniforms of beauty
Tools of knowledge
An ounce of excellence
The gateman's solace

The vague of coerced dreams
Awaiting trial
Kneeling at their master
Waiting to be liberated
A sound of fantasy's cane

There have been others
Lingering in the twilight
Travelling through the walls
Methodist High School
A home of forgotten glory

Written by Tosan Oluwakemi Thompson

Palindromic stuff...*

a **** nixes *** in Tulsa
Gateman sees name, garage man sees name tag
Yo, banana boy
If I had a hi-fi
A nut for a jar of tuna
Race fast, safe car
Solo gigolos
Dogma is a lair of raw War; for I alas!, I am God
never odd or even

/
‘’ Fade ‘’ Mile Failte

Yes, the sun eventually set in the
Brutish Empire, last rays dimmed
the 40 shades of our welcome mat.

Our lament is over, no more Lodge
at the entrance, we’re emancipated
not even a gateman for thé trains.

We became born again, *******,
**** the black babies, the lot of
them should have been aborted.

Mother Theresa was a fossil faced
***** and Kuntae Kintae got what
he deserved,

**** Bangladesh Bob Geldof and
Band Aid,