Breach To Bones(TO GABRIEL) It's useless to glimpseat the dotted disappearanceof a dark stairway… He came bespectacled, blind to his stick and stachel,cast in a form that could holdany worldly-wise ambitions to ransom,mere feeble hulk in its deathward drift,vanishing vacuum clothed in barren dirt,once an accomplished mason whose crafthas lost its smooth edge to doddering […]
Is it love?Special BThat we now speakLike warring knightsAnd eye each otherWith mutual suspicionAnd question laden thoughts. Is it love?That whenever we speakWe weigh each weighty wordAs we tread on thin iceOf our hanging bond.Is it love?That whenever we sightEach other’s faceOur pulses quickenWith heads of trepidationIn the course and corollaryOf our encounter. Is it […]
Yesterday is but a dreamTomorrow is only a visionBut to-day well lived makesEvery yesterday a dream ofHappiness, and everyTomorrow a vision of hope.Look well, therefore, tothis day. A. Detunji EDITOR’S NOTE Originally published in Nigeria Magazine on 01 Jan 1981, p. 119. This diplomatic transcription preserves the wording and lineation visible in the archived page. […]
upright shadow bends towardearth at dusk’s approach No matter then whetherwe be prostrate or aplumbfor in our end is our beginning;in our beginning is our end- One spring gives life and death their agencies! Solomon Ayagere EDITOR’S NOTE Originally published in Nigeria Magazine on 01 Jan 1981, p. 116. This diplomatic transcription preserves the wording […]
This world is a stage,Vast and spacious,Where actors come and go.Some appear with a glamorousshow,In mighty castles,Some drooping, wretched souls areseen,In huts of mud,In shabby clothes. But,After the performance of their part,When they both finally depart,Leave the stage,Desert this world,To appear before the greatest Lord,Then no difference can be perceived,As both are draped in white […]
The first cryIs struggleI passed through all stagesToil and sweatAchieved and retiredI look myselfIn mirror full lengthIs this me?I asked.Years tellingGrandfather white headSkin wrinklesI waitedIt cameAnd I die.Funeral rituals doneRemains in shroudFor the cemeteryPut in graveSand toppingMy final homeOther thingsThis point beyondNot known S.K.B. Lazarus EDITOR’S NOTE Originally published in Citizen on 14 Feb 1994, […]
Nor will this earth serve him; he sinkes the deepeWhere harmelesse fish monastique silence keepe,Who (were Death dead) by Roes of living sand,Might spunge that element, and make it landHe rounds the aire, and breakes the hymnique notesIn birds (Heavens choristers,) organique throats,Which (if they did not dye might seem to beeA tenth ranke in […]