Toluwalase by Olayinka Abimbola Egbokhare

Five out of nine months

You lived out your fear

A little prayer

A lot more worry

Then the first locking of our eyes...

You checked briskly

Ten fingers and toes, one nose...

Ahh, your loud muted sigh

Then you saw the funny shaped finger.

But you loved still

Loved till your heart almost burst

Loved, ignoring the reports of the sour faced clan in white coats

You shut off the tearlets

Then Baba came

Eyes bloodshot but not from wine

My Baba, the Baba of the other two musketeers who just found a new love

And he pronounced my name

No need to wait for eight days "Toluwalase",

Let God have the final say...

Special Feature: Kukogho Iruesiri Samson, Author of 'I SAID THESE WORDS' and Founder of WRR

SHE IS NOT PERFECT

She is not perfect
But her eyes stole the colours of rainbow
They light up my skies on happy days
Parabolic beauty beyond compare

She is not perfect
But the melody of her voice
Calms the taut nerves of my heart
And sings my soul to sleep 

She is not perfect
But her lips are softer than butter
And firm is the roundness
Of the swells on her chest 

She is not perfect
So when I frown my face
As she walks by, do not smile
She'll soon be in my arms 

She is not perfect
But our hearts are one
The osmosis of love
Made it so 

WORDS ARE LIKE CLAY by Professor Francis Egbokhare

If you are a linguist like I am, chances are that you have come to appreciate the value of words. Politicians with savvy know too well that politics is about weaving words like a spider and getting all others but oneself caught in the web. Words evoke emotions; they help us to think clearly. The power or words lie in the fact that they are the most potent instrument for control. Man has not been able to invent a better means. Words never fail, they cannot fail if we know how to string them together, if we apply them with the right dose of passion and if we learn how to pamper them and tease out the juice in them.

Words can also be terrible if we fail to understand them. For instance, it is a taboo to break words because they are like eggs, you cannot put them back together. You don’t also throw them at others because they can harden on contact with the hearts or men and become missiles thrown back at you. The greatest thing about words is that they are poor servants sometimes, they can tell stories which we do not intend. They reveal the secrets of our hearts in such remote and dark places which even God may not have been to. I am more fascinated at how words tell stories about our lives and our society. For instance, a poor man gets killed, a rich man or person of substance is murdered, a politician or ruler is assassinated. 

International Feature: FERN G. Z. CARR, Member of the League of Canadian Poets and Pushcart Prize Nominee

Art and a Winter Landscape

Shadows stretch their arms

and yawn

as they lie upon a bed rumpled

by trails of footprints

disappearing into the distance

like a perspective drawing

of converging railway tracks.

Blanketed with snow-laden pines,

mountains watch the shadows sleep

under a ceiling of cirrus cloud –

their contours sketched upon a vast canvas.

Blue – everything is swathed in shades of blue:

smoke curling up from chimneys,

sky, snow-capped mountains, ice on the lake –

reflections of Picasso’s Blue Period;

the light – crisp, sharp and focused –

a tribute to nature’s artistry

as she paints a winter landscape.

Special Feature: Eriata Oribhabor, Nigeria's Foremost Poet and Poetry Promoter

For YOU

Eriata Oribhabor in poetic motion...

That very place and time came

Without a click, rolling back the

Innocence of your sincerity

Enveloping me till date.

The gate opened you onto the road

For a meeting of two; a brother

And a sister...careless about

Colour, creed and more.

That day, that moment, that meet

That click of life's beauty

Beauty...from the inside

Never weather beaten.

Turn back the hand

Of your thoughts...tell me

Its clicking sounds...a deep breath

Tell me we are not brother and sister.

These lines are for you...yes...for you

Who read them long before written

In bold letters on that cake you baked me

When I hardly knew how cakes taste.

Rebirth of Hope by Prosperline Amadi

The sky, a sizeable womb, foggy

And deformed with pregnant clouds.

The grounds sun-baked, utterly dry

With vein-like cracks running through.

The plains grossly athirst.

No birds heard chirping, singing

The playground devoid of plays

All trees stood bare, abandoned

Exposed to the caress of the wind.

Beneath the land a seed lay...

Dormant, repellent but potent.

In its confines, rebirth echoed

For freedom to eavesdrop.

Casualties of Depravities by Professor Francis Egbokhare

We are the casualties

Prisoners in a fortress of falling walls

Grandmasters of the illusion of excellence

Masked men and women in ‘Grand Theft Identity’¹

Residents of a disappearing tower

Actors on a sinking sewer

Stars of a game of ruse

Yes!

We are the robed ones

Dressed up in scarlet regalia of monumental errors

Collocated in academic processions like humanized penguins

None breaking formation

All intuiting affirmation

Echoing the dol-drum

We are sycophants

Wallowing in error

In the name of hunger

We shall plunder²