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International Poetry الشعر শ্লোক ကဗျာ ליבע ਪਿਆਰ өлүм

African Poetry with editor Michael R. Burch

Michael R. Burch

PRIDE

 

The vice of pride

Is a bride without a price

 

Like a vessel, she dazzles

Only to become fickle in a twinkle

 

Her ego rises

While her personality falls

Like roses in a mall

 

I am a victim

Just one in a team

For we are much and many

Uncountable as all the world’s money

And it’s not funny.

 

Hear now people: Be humble.

I bet you won't crumble

It’s not a parable

It’s reality

And I know you know it!!

 

 

Chukwuemerie Udekwe is from Agulu, Anambra State, Nigeria, and is an undergraduate student of Philosophy. He aspires to reach out to the world through his writing.

IN LOVE

 

There is that time in life

When we fall in love:

That is where we change in life,

Our minds confused by love.

We start to forget about parents

Who raised us in difficulties.

 

Let’s stop to watch and act.

Let’s inform our elders

About what we are supposed to do

In order to survive

In the world of love.

Maybe we can survive.

Love is a part of life,

So let’s learn about it.

 

 

Zakhele Mncwango is 22 years old, and from Nongoma, South Africa. He is a student at Unisa, working on a bachelor's degree in education. Zakhele lives in Mashu and likes to write poems and stories.

The Future Africa (let the future be)

 

The future of Africa is . . .

When Aisha and Sarah will bond as sisters

Where Emmanuel and Mohammed are brothers

Where their strife is to surpass one another in love-works,

The future of Africa is . . .

Where hard work is celebrated and not frustrated

Where a woman’s worth is beyond the other room’s door

And who-is-who is determined by the-good-you-do and not by who-you-know

The future of Africa is . . .

Where our varieties unite us, rather than keeping us apart

Where our ambitions will not cost the life of another.

 

 

Ehoche Edache Elijah is a 31-year-old trained Biochemist from Nigeria. He is fascinated with the world; everything seems to speak something, and that makes him a life student of poetry, letting the world tell its story.

What you won’t find on your contract offer

 

     Two men not uneasy walk in
     then with open arms
     share warm ‘good mornings’
     with two on my right and one on my left.
     I get sickle faces like question marks
     & outstretched hands like exclamation marks.

It is Monday at Pops International, Abuja
& it’s the flyleaf of work.

This page is littered with letters
of inflated taxi fares & unfriendly doorknobs
hellos with sickle faces & interrogative smiles
recurring jargon & stony bean porridge for lunch
smitten co-workers & jealous cohorts.

New beginnings are moving
from a rich mesocarp to loam.
New beginnings are going
from eggshell to the mesosphere,
where even divinity doesn’t know the future.

 


CKD

I know the pulse
At his groin
I have been there
Initially twice a month
Then twice weekly

 

His bean-shaped balls
Lose differentiation
Progressively/regressively
Till his phallus runs dry

 

In this renal ward
Life goes away
Like the ending of a stream
Of piss
Tup
Tup
Tup

 


We men have stories too

Stories of birds taking back feathers
Stories of love, ice and sinking friendships
Stories of toads, mocking our lonely strolls

Stories of unconfessed crushes
who now sleep on the chest
we had both called an ironing board

Stories of unreturned gestures and greetings
unreturned phone calls, unreturned affection
returned and unreturned engagement rings

Stories of teardrop-responses
to the call of song lyrics that use
stolen voices to lampoon our lives

Stories of how we killed the radios
that tried to sympathize, using Akon’s voice
To say she never took the time to know us

Stories of sighting two adults in bed
The consent glistening like the condom wrap
The woman's face familiar as a wife’s

Stories of falling-outs with TVs
TVs that show Westlife’s Fool Again
when they should show the rainbow’s colours

Stories of reluctant manhoods
who know the woody smell of letdowns
who know he that is down need not fear a fall

You-don’t-care-enough stories, you-care-too-much stories,
You-are-not-the-one stories, I-am-not-the-one-for-you stories,
I-gave-your-name-to-pastor stories, you-make-me-distant-from-God stories,

Yes, we have stories too
Stories with mural lessons

Kayode Afolabi is a chronic cakehaholic, doctor, and a ripening poet. His first poetry attempt was a tweaking, at age 11, of Auden’s “Lullaby” into a never-dispatched love note.

Gorge
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