Adesola Oladoja redux

Be You 

Never change for anyone

None is worth your sweat

Feel fine always, not forlorn

Lest you we greet with wrath

Don't expect your words to count

Where they want it not

Don't go shout on any fount

Just to make the cut

Do your best

Be your friend

Rejoice always lest

Your glee soon ends

And when you remember

That you didn't live as you 

You'll say alas members

I miss my precious due

So forgive hurts
Laugh alone
Know your worth
It exceeds billions

Walk head held high
Live aright
Let your foes sigh
Or take their flight

And if they want
The you you are
End their wants
Bring down the bars

Do be sure
Be very sure
Hell sure
they are sure
Of their wants

Be Yourself!!! -- Raceanu Mihai

Adesola Oladoja redux

My Fear 

 

Let he who is

Sinless

Cast a stone first

 

We run from the truth 

The truth we know 

We know will bring the light 

Why?

 

I do not cringe at failure

I've been in its mire 

I have arisen a better me

 

I do not fear my flaws  

I've known the strength

Of their weakness

 

I do not fear defeat

I've seen the victory therein 

Which no ephemerality could behold 

 

This is what I fear  

That I'll one day run away 

And dodge as soon as I hear 

The footsteps of

My truth

The truth I so preach

 

Let Him Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone -- Darcie Pike

Adesola Oladoja redux

The Little Bird

Your song,

Your glee

Where has it gone?

The you of yesteryears

Oozed giant drops

Tapped joyful tears

From our rivulets

But then you left our nest and garden

You've been gone for just a season

Was it the terrain that chided you

Or innocuous smiles of us?

Was it the climes, maybe the times?

For now we see you no more

Yes, you returned

But not the you

We parted with

For your song now sags our ears

Melancholy trails it

Hostility smells within your mile

It's lucid to the blind

O little bird

I love you so

But change your change with haste

For we still listen to your songs

Though it hurts our ears

 

-- thesurfacebelow

Adesola Oladoja, Oreoluwa Elujulo redux

Musings

Abike come let us reminisce the old days

Let us visit the old ways

Days when moon was our only light

And we pray quick come the nights

Akanni let's forget about our needs

Talk about our kids

Sing to old rhythms

The beats in our hearts

I still long for those times

Wish we had the air of those climes

When maami gladly sent you

On errands with less worried issues

The joy of each stolen moment

Away from movements

Kept in secret

Even from our friends

Yea.. The whispers

The dance steps out of view

The play round the odan tree

Whilst moonlight stories trend

The music of the crickets

The screeches of the owl

The croaking of the frogs

Mixed with our entwined heart beats

Fill my fingers with yours

Make me feel that impulse

Come nearer to my heart

Hear its silent beats for you

Your smile stops my search for eternity

Heaven lies in your arms

There I'll gladly spend my years

Basking in the bliss therein

I have found a shelter

Here in your bosom

Every other will falter

You alone are my desire

 

Adesola Oladoja redux

The Poet And The Pencil

 If I were a poet
 I would sing the breeze to dance
Endlessly, flawlessly
I would weave sounds
To the delight of the deaf
Whilst they dance and prance

If I were a poet
I'd phonate and steal attention
Ne'er go a day without being mentioned
The trees would still their dances
In humble salutation

If I were a poet
The cosmos would gather round
To admire this piece of mine

But I am not a poet
God is the poet

Bragi -- Carl Wahlbom

Adesola Oladoja redux

The Patient Dog

Once I came across a dog
Panting before a puddle
By our side a narrow path 
The dog was not befuddled 
For it stood apart

Its message was clear
Rang louder than sirens 
Have your way o human 
I thought at the sense
 It bothers my man 
I smiled and took the lane 

Not until I had my way 
Did it start its ply 
I wish I could give it a pat 
Know not what that would imply 
But that act on my heart sat 

For that dog has shown me 
The greatest lesson 
I need for a while
How to deal with persons 
Even when I rile
 Make my humble stand 
 Go along with a smile

Be  longsuffering 
Let peace have its way 
And do nothing but remember 
The fattest bone in all seasons 
Still belongs to the patient dog

 Dog With Bone --  SHOK-1

Adesola Oladoja redux

I Will Be Here

Reticence speaks volumes

Silence is not dumb

Yet eloquence has little power

Where sighs are traded well

 

I'll wait here alone

Whistle to my shadow all night long

I'll tap my weary knee

Rub off my sleepy eye

 

Just to catch a glimpse

A glimpse of you again

To see through and through

What others mock and scorned

 

I'm waiting here

E'en if it takes years

Man in the Shadow -- Cynthia Gregorová

Adesola Oladoja redux

Back Again?

So, are we back

On our track

Where we started

Before you forfeited

Our little beginnings

Like Gomer you went astray

Is it nature or your fray?

I can't but wonder

What tore us assunder

What would cost your returning?

You looked at me

Tagged me unworthy

Ostracised from your world

You treated me like blunt sword

Are we back darling?

A man's essence

Lies in his usefulness

What you want in me

Lies nowhere but here

That explains your beckoning

I would be glad

To make you sad

Turn you to your comrades

With whom you found sheltering shades

Or why?

Tell me

Are we back again

Where we started?

 

 

Hosea and Gomer -- Cody F. Miller

Adesola Oladoja redux

Wilderness

 

She knows no fertility

Left in futility

Empty

 

Barreness caresses it

Licks its rusty face

Unkempt

Unmanaged

 

Its path as laid

One to tread

The barracks of conquerors

The test of the best

The victory victors must view

To arrive and thrive 

 

The way for the wise

Left for those that will rise

 

The paradox all runs from

Only few can view its future glee

Only those with insights 

Will face the frights

 

The home of frontliners

 Rust Face 3 -- Hey-Em

Adesola Oladoja redux

WISH YOU STAY 

oh that this twinkle will stay 
to create an inferno 
and last the night 
last the years 

oh that this smile will never fade that 
cut across my streams and valleys 
munched, crunched to reappear 
like cuds that billies chew 

and if the night will, it could stay 
stay my fears and daylight's shame 
shame the light that scorns my look 
when I know there can't be 'US' 

oh that this moment will dwell 
and I may all creatures tell 
the joy in its pent up folly 
the comfort that thus make me wholly 

alas this twinkle won't stay 
it is meant for miles away

Fire Star -- Christopher Gaston

Adesola Oladoja redux

ABIKU

Thou radiant child with glittering eyes

Cherished by parents, loved by the Lord

Your entrance brings whispers of joy
The strangers we so seek to welcome

You evening moon that runs out soon
To evade the bright morning rays
A friend of gloom, allianced to doom
A foe of winter's finest norms

The prodigal son that forbade return
The wayward daughter that eloped with the night
Yearning for more pods, more time in bed
What chiefdom have thou away from home ?

Abiku, die and let your death be swift
Die to those things that eternal slumber brings


Dream of the Abiku Child -- Prince Twins Seven Seven

Adesola Oladoja writes

POETRY

when simile smiles on you
you need not force a metaphor
and the speed rate of alliteration
will make you want to pay tuition, for
simple repetitions

hyperbole is a very big ball
ever rising initially with innuendo

take me into the sea of apostrophe
let us impersonate personification
let us dine with ambiguity in unity
and ride along with all sorts of
paradox

zeugma will man the gate as chiasmus
waits on full charge
our ironical situation is already 
canonical, so let us not stop but 
keep getting buried in the mystery of poetry

 -- Odysseus Elytis

Adesola Oladoja redux

To My Coy Mistress

Àsàké,

I see your shadow haunt me every night 

as bats caress the heavenly light.

Footsteps scurry in anticipated hurry,

echoes of your laughter flirts with my ear
from behind

But I wake to a different tale,
I wonder if to you, they are not stale,
your ramblings about mama's plea
and how papa warns you to flee
from me, Àdùfé.

Omolàbáké,
Mama's back aches;
she misses the soft feel of a toddler's cheek
and the wetness that comes with nature's call.
Or if a mad rehearsal lasts a century,
when will light welcome the malady?
When will the centre stage
cherish your age-long sacrifice?

Listen to the beat of your heart.
Don't you hear an age-long rhythm
for me ?
I, Àdùfé, am the joy of many a virgin
Adéróungbé almost eloped with me the other night
but the love I have for you,
the duende you have for me is sealed
in heaven's blissful terrain
where no mortal can interlope.

Awéléwà.
Time waits for no man.
We do not have eternity.
All we have is 'todays' wrapped up in new
names and numbers.
Bride me now that I may groom you onwards

Meet me under the odán tree
as Baba Awóyefá seals the union.
Mind not your parents' consent,
the earth already knows our intents.
If it's their blessings you crave,

a long time ago, in us, it was engraved.

Meet me where
no prying eyes will taint your sashay.
Just mine, Bàbá's and Olódùmárè
to witness our sweet becoming,
to seal a lifetime of 'me-youty'

Àsàké.
Come, let's be entwined now
till now fades...

Olodumare -- Lawrence Zúñiga Batista     

Adesola Oladoja redux

I

I am a broken poet 

with a-c-b-d,

I mean a-b-c-z, uh

My thoughts, disjointed;

seriously struggling to make sense,

coming, going, jumping, crawling

out of an aching head.

I am a broken verse

I like to be a ...

diving and ... all along,

dying at every attempt

to make musical melody

in lieu of melodramatic malady.

I am my father's son.

Last I saw him, I was

three,

munching a bag of flakes

he claimed to bring from hajj.

I am a nonsense poem

but somehow you are glued to me,

waiting to unearth

                   -unravel

                   -unleash the meaning

I bare.

I am a lover's woe,

coming when the bliss is sweetest,

leaving when the cry is saddest

for yet a little pat, a little tap,

a little moment of crazy upsurge,

wild electric frenzy. 

I am the hunter's 'gamed' game,

waiting to haunt back he who hunted

when dinner is nearly over, and

wives clutter in lively chinwag, 

I will enjoy the yelp, the roll, the thud

as he falls with his damaged

throat,

perforated by my bones. 

I am nothing

Don't waste till you catch me.

The answer on your lips,

when in silent wonder, you

leave men to torturous ponder. 

I, I, I 

I am you

when I want and please to be.

Now, you can go to bed,

pray your soul be fed,

rhythmic morsels, redeeming bread

to fine-tune your, your, your 

b-b-broken self. 

For now, I rest my wearied soul

  

two defaced busts of Virgil