Our people say:
Eng: You cannot fatten a pig on the market day - Nigerian Proverb.
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Hello,
I'm sorry about my well spaced out posts in the last few weeks. As soon as I return to my scheduled life, I'll be back on here.
The other day at the close of work, I asked a colleague if he would like to write a poem...
Me: Guy, let's do a flash poetry exercise
Guy: What's that?
Me: We write short poems in a short amount of time.
Guy: Uh huh...
Me: So, you choose a word and we each write a poem that relates to the word in, say, eight minutes. Then we share poems.
Guy: Let's do it!
It was so much fun, we ended up doing four poems each and then we had to go home. Guy confessed that poetry is beautiful. GUY...CONFESSED that poetry is beautiful. Okay!
The rules were that the poem had to have eight lines, be written in eight minutes and contain the randomly chosen word.
Here are the ones I wrote:
1.
Chosen word: Inadvertent
It is only wise that I return home,
To where my sadist father’s bones rot
And my bitter mother’s skin moulds
- Where my heart deserted long ago
………………………………...................
I am their child: at most, they fed me
Though our scores are on hold for beyond here
For now, it is inadvertent that I face my silent fears
And return to put their ghosts to rest.
2.
Chosen word: Evolve
Oh! How Alero has become a woman,
In 72 inches of skin like new honey…
… And with a waist lined with spring like her mother’s,
Her mother - My husband’s first lover.
…………………………………………………
Temisan, my own child, walks unlike a horse
And talks unlike a lady ready to give palmwine to a man.
When this ‘thorn’ in my garden will evolve into a flower,
I do not know.
Chosen word: Window
More than before, these days,
Your jalabia cloak smells of hibiscus incense,
Like the ones the Eastern women make.
More than before, you travel to the East,
To “sell your windows to the Eastern builders”
And perhaps, drink with their wives.
Do you also sleep with the Eastern builders’ wives,
While they burn hibiscus incense?
4.
Chosen word: Prayer
With this warm dinner, I beg you my husband,
Never wake me up again for prayer.
My faith is like the receding desert
And my heart is in despair.
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Only last week, I rocked my child to sleep
And combed her black, bushy hair.
And I prayed and prayed for her ill to flee
Is dead, like my only child, the answerer of prayer?
[We decided to rhyme on the fourth one. If you've read anything of mine, you'll see that I abstain from rhyme
as much as possible. This was not the easiest or 'funnest' one to write.]
P.S: Guy is Guy's real name.
Thank you and God bless,
NakedSha.
