3 Poems │ Ogah Friday David

It Is

Promises are
bayonets pressed
upon the rungs
of hope. . . and gouged
by a hornet. ‘trust’ —
a cadaver walking
on mortal hoofs,
unaware of the luring
fragrance sketched in the air;
but…you, are
a thin line:
a poltergeist feeding
on my innocence, whilst
the silk of my youth
disappears into the underworld,
to your bosom.

Firefly

I lust for
the waistline on the stretches
that lead to an unclad, quiet
stream; my appetite: yet shy,
trail its azure streaks mirroring
the lashes on the surface
of the sky.
though nightfall is nigh,
and the moon soon will spread its feathers
on caps of shriveled trees,
fireflies parade the barracks
of roiling whooshes of the wind
with flames from their bodies- a lamp
that creams the narrow pathway to
an ancient Eucharist.

Brittle Me

Here I am: jagged, listening to counsels
of an unlettered therapist, with a noose firmly woven
around my formless neck, as
my mind gropes the
thigh of this ‘thoughts’ – its vestiges seat like an arching
scar over my spines: A CHIMERA! warped
pitifully in nobility.

Here I am, chewing on tangy cuds,
with a molar that retires
to the warmth of a forlorn pillow
of guilt: confused,
carrying on my head a blanched bodybag, choreographing alone from the guardhouse of ‘mankind’
into the amphitheater of immortality!

Here I am,
halfhearted, chiseling through slabs of defeat, rioting with the chokehold
of this sinewy threads on the
conscience of my
aged, sad,
depressed ego!

Ogah Friday David is an Abuja based poet, freelance writer, and a student trainee at the University of Abuja Radio, from Otukpo LGA of Benue State, Nigeria. He has written several unpublished poems and articles, and is currently an undergraduate in the department of Languages and Linguistics, University of Abuja.