3 Poems │ Daniel Ezeokeke

Seraphim Falls I

Yesterday, we the young whose purity
has never been stained with sin saw
depravities which had been covered
by our fathers’

odd words with cloaks of rakishness.
We watched our antiquated prides, monuments
of grandeur, guarded for aeons from bandits
by sweats

of medieval nobility, and bequests of honor
bartered in the temple of greed for two loaves
of bread- imbecility
we then gazed with agony on corpse of gods
who preached

sanctity, exhumed and violated with filthy rods of
corruption; acts of hogwash which strangled the
foetus of dreams forming in gravid wombs of hope
with machines designed to aid transformation.

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Omalicha

I
The quality of my love for you
equals the relative permeability
of your smiles multiplied by the
magnetic susceptibility of your curves

II
Omalicha, your touches are like
wind causing turbulent surges on
the frame of my cavities

III
Your smiles, like ointments imported
from Sheba are elixirs that cure
sadness and stress

IV
Your hips muse me darl,
an amazing silhouette carved by
the artistry of nature, its awe surpasses
the seventh wonder

V
& like an archaeologist, I tried
deciphering the splendor of your eyes,
all I could see was a scintillating sparkle,
a brightness surpassing the luminous
intensity of Einstein’s photo-electric effect.

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Nostalgia

Can’t you see vicious giants wearing
pancakes of narcissism on gory skins
clogging the coasts of the Niger
with colossal granites of
despair and blocking
crossroads to renaissance?

Can’t you hear loud wailing of
babes, juveniles of the Sub-Sahara
whose bodies have been edited
by kwashiorkor,

the artist who dances to beats made
by hunger, politicians
sucking the breast of the economy
with pipes resembling
proboscis of bugs

can’t you see vile pythons on shady
regalia of corruption romancing
the staff of justice, the only totem
of equity in the hall of prejudice

We are now an icon of ignominy,
a sight resembling scrotums of
dogs plagued by a legion of lice,
sashaying to and fro the borders
of the Sahara; a futile odysseys on
a quest for nothingness.

Save us!

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