MIRAGE OF GLORY

Like a wraith it appeared and disappeared in a splash.

A spectre of glory unleashed, withdrawn like a bash

Of fistful force unrestrained and let loosed like trash.

An image of illusionary grandeur with apparition,

It came into sight and vanished like a phantasm.

Phantasmagorically, in sequence it appeared to disappear.

We waited and slumbered, so weak and weary a condition.

We waited in great anticipation of a moment long gone.

Gone like the good old day; we felt undone.

The Holy Book speaks of the latter glory

Being greater than the former. Struggle of gory

With all the blood wasted calling for vengeance.

With so much force we seek for peace in trance.

On the cause of this we seek for the appearance

Of what the latter glory will bring with it in its ambience.

With tears we planted with hope of joyful harvest.

With lachrymosity, morose untethered abreast,

We toiled and laboured not for personal gains, but

We exert ourselves for the glory that lies ahead in the west.

Working our fingers to the bone not to outwit, but

We moiled, paddling in mud, just to standout among the best.

We, like Trojan, worked hard, pulling and prodding under;

We, seeking for something to go beyond the yonder;

When weariness beckons, doggedly with sweat in the heat

We find energy in hope that metamorphosed into zeal.

When failure beckons, with hope of success so real

We thought of the glory ahead and fail to fail with a beam.

We lost love in lust, and find lust in love, all in the dream.

If we knew our glory will be lost in trance, we could

Have forever abided in stupor. Dreaming would

Have been better than living. At least the glory would

Have been realisable. But the reverie could

Not outlast the reality. We awoke to the crude,

Unrefined, barbaric coldness of verisimilitude.

Hundreds of brothers and sisters from the hood

Toiled with us for this optical illusion. As we stood

It’s obvious the glory we seek was a mirage yet so true.

LABYRINTH OF ILLUSORY SUCCESS

(With tears and pains ...)

Through the maze we traverse

On a journey to nowhere safe our destination.

The weather lacerate through our skin.

In too deep, it cuts like the surgeon’s knife.

And at a point, same weather scorched fiercely;

Burning through us like the blacksmith’s fire.

The fire in us unquenchable by the rain;

We traverse through the desert of pain.

Undeterred by the tears on our women's faces;

Forging ahead despite wailings from our children.

Wailing echoing like the ‘Timbrel of Miriam’,

On the zigzag path to success we tread with hope.

Like a rabbit warren, the network of success

Sometimes so difficult to link. Yet this opulence

We seek with blood dripping from our body.

At a point gushing out like ‘Ikogosi Waterfalls’

Body so cold with fever; blood so warm with cold.

I saw blood! Blood of the innocent red as scarlet.

This journey drenched our soul in blood

At a point, we couldn’t move our feet, but

When we think of our destination, we smile.

Standing to face the uphill task like it's no stress

At all. We walk. Walking or dragging, we couldn’t tell.

On this labyrinth of success we traversed undeterred.

Like Elliot in his 'The Journey of the Magi', we too

On this journey, saw death; and there was a birth.

A birth of a new life in us, full of hope & desire.

We walk tall at the sight of fulfilment. If the

Success that had been our plight we can't have

Nothing then is worth having, not women or drinks.

At the gate of success, with regrets we stand,

For it appears our journey has come to futility.

Shrieks of our women and children echoing in our ears,

We've brought them to vanity, for the journey was futile.

With tears and pains we voyaged for vainglory.

The illusory success disappeared like a wraith.

ANOTHER PERFECT DATE

(A Sequel to ‘A Perfect Date We Had’)

On a second date yet with no plate.

Sitting with her like soldier with no breastplate;

Soldiers we are with no war safe this date.

And like fish caught with the bait,

Unrestrained I got led off to the gate.

Like a cow being led to the slaughter house

I follow docilely like a new found spouse.

Dicing with my heart, yet willing to let go.

A heart so delicate and so much risk to take at a go.

At a point we search for answer to question,

Like Wilbur Schramm in his ‘Fraction of Selection’

Is the expectation of reward higher

Than efforts required...?

Talking about the long gone past like yesterday

We reminisce on childhood memories unbound;

Memories in which laughter we found;

Memories in which some bit of regrets lay;

Memories of first day in school bullies lay;

Memories of making hay in the day.

Another perfect date we had with memories.

At the stroke of twenty-two hundred,

Departure time looms like no bounded kindred.

And like a flour in an oven called bread,

She rose with no yeast ... I turned red;

For the path backward we now have to tread.

A PERFECT DATE WE HAD

(For a lady whose name is inscribe within)

We sat on the earth and the time fled-off

We talked and the wind echoed with a scoff

We giggled and the birds joined in like cough

We, in the silence that erupt

Converse.

A perfect date we had with no dinner.

A night to remember. The bliss

Accompanying a memory with no kiss.

A smile that makes the once dismissed

Future yesterday ... Yesterday like abyss

And now no more fear of

An uncertain tomorrow ... the fear fades off

       When we converse.

A perfect date we had with no table.

She waltz in, finds the rhythm in a go.

Speeding off in a perfect suiting tango,

She finds the velocity impeccable.

Singing hearts, dancing feet, with no

Sign of music from the band.

Stop! Wish I can say that to time.

She asked of the time, twenty-one hundred

Says I with sadness written all over me.

Still, a perfect date we had with no plates.

Make me yours with no faltering.

Unleash thy heartfelt feelings.

Nestle me till in thee I find my breathing.

Imbedded in me is a true heart of loving.

Rhapsodize your love with utter inkling.

Acquaint me with thy breathtaking blessing.

Till I find succour in your eyes, gazing.

A perfect date we had, now I want more.