LOUDTHOTZ

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After Your Last Bow

Written By: Loudthotz - Apr• 13•12
(Poem of the Month – April, 2012)

Akeem Oyalowo

We found the wine
Spilled on the table
Still being called mine
By the bottle
When we see them gather
We know there is trouble
Father didn’t keep us together
He is on another level
Long gone
Curses walked him, titles off him
We are left with the sun
Just like Asake, who didn’t bear any sons
Good for that matter or daughters
Yet others called you father
From your loins, grew a seed in their mothers
Tales of your deeds were not new
But only Asake we knew
And she loved you
Just like the others, before, during and after you
Remember the morning, when you raced into her arms
All green but with arms
And you held title husband for a while
And left later to wild applause and smiles
And just like all loves
If the blood remains young, the hand might yet go back to gloves
Some men held Asake, after you did
Sucked her milk they did
They treated her less or better than you
Your history and hers were never through
Not even when she found a man
Who could have met all her demands
But your friends killed him
Just when a dead machine recovered steam
So all that was left was you
So you became the man promising to flush the loo
And by that you saved my life
Asake brought you back, became your wife
Despite your promises you again defiled
All that which filled your file
Those facts and figures which never lie
Produced my bile
My family is large don’t ask me why
Some friends are family, my family are not friends
What you did good, few as they were
I never knew until those hours
When mother and sister
Ran hither and thither
In a bid to heal, a son and brother
One hospital didn’t have beds, so the doctors didn’t bother
By this time, Asake had vowed
Your leaving this time was the last bow
But this two thousand men and women
Might not remember you well
But their destinies will
Added to mine, where a card from you, keeps me still
And provided this chance
To cite this instance…

Written and recited by Akeem Adetayo Oyalowo at LOPR Season3, Episode4.

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Mr. Pianist

Written By: Loudthotz - Mar• 11•12
(Poem of the Month – March, 2012)

There lived a man on Ol’Kin Lane
Whose name was Natsore
But I literarily called him Pianist
For the piano he could play.

Now upon a day, so happy and fair,
A-jollying was I too
With several draughts of good old ale
To lose my tongue anew

Thus perhaps it was heard from my very own lips;
“Mr. Pianist is the greatest!
“He can play a tune, to make the queen weep,
“And birds think ‘twas the sweetest!”

Alas! I knew not that in the winds
My words were carried far
Till they chanced upon an ear of the King’s
And did his good mood mar

By morning light his emissary arrived
With words; “your hour is nigh!
“The piano must resound, the queen must weep
“Or you, foolish one, shall die!”

A fortnight hence, is all you have
To ready your “great” pianist
And then on your own must you appear
To live or embrace death’s fist.

And so it was that before my eyes
My brief existence passed
As I raced to the house on Ol’ Kin Lane
All bothered and sorely harassed

Oh wake, I cried, and your piano play
For you must understand,
That literarily speaking Mr, Pianist,
My life is in your hand

By day and night, with little rest
I became his household pest
Cajoling, weeping, kissing his hand
Till much annoyance he expressed

But, said I to him, “my sad conduct,
You cannot reprimand,
For literarily speaking Mr, Pianist,
My life lies in that hand”

The D-day dawned with an eager crowd
To bear witness to my fate
All chattering, whispering, immune to my quivering
As I prayed to be spared death’s gate

As the music rose and fell with grace
Perhaps to make the soul transcend
I was filled with dread of death’s embrace
But then a miracle happened

In the skies above for all to see
Seven white birds in a “V”
In tune and gliding gracefully
To the music’s ecstasy

“Oh what sight”, cried out the queen
In beauty’s splendor was she swept!
And all beheld as in divided accord
My queen and I… we wept

Like you must have guessed, my life was spared,
As otherwise this poem unbidden
Surely today would not be heard
And would have gone unwritten!

Yet if someday I chance on any man,
All Curious about your talent?
Most literarily speaking my dear Pianist,
I will chose to be silent!


Written and recited by Marilyn Maduka at LOPR Season3, Episode3.

 

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.blindfolds.

Written By: Loudthotz - Feb• 15•12
(Poem of the Month – February 2012)

“Even though these blindfolds yet be unopened;
still, i see; chains yet unbroken,
I see; roads yet un-trodden,
I see; chords yet un-woven,
I see; giants yet un-woken,
..all because, ‘em very right words are still yet un-spoken!

I see: Jona’s in town, and the whole town’s in scampers.
I see: Boko just hit town, and the UN is on fire.
I see: Little Kofo musing over her youth service posting,
‘coz she’s so off to the plateau; an unsolved crime
scene.
I see: Dona in grief’s bar!
.heads down, hands down, legs fanned, life’s out,
drowned in d tunes of little Dona’s requiem, ‘coz
“hurricane” tawa, didn’t seem to heed them!

I see; worries in the air,
I see; bodies without care,
I see; urchins everywhere,
Yet i see; graduates that didn’t learn; without pens, without heads!

I see; peace ills,
I see; ill pills,
I see; huge bills,
Yet i see; long queues even in our private hospitals!

I see; halls built,
I see; pews filled,
I see; huge guilts,
Yet I see; lips sealed, dreams killed, sin distilled, even in confession!

..so I ..pause..to see still..

and I see beyond these spectacles that create these vivid illusions,
like I see right through their mandibles, when ‘em ar saying things they can’t do!

I see beyond these icing’s on the national cake,
Like I see that cake aint cake ’til WE be properly baked!
I see in me what they saw in WE, when ‘em were selling us things we didn’t even need,
Like I see we still bickering, constantly for over half of a century, with our offspring lay lounging lavishly yet penuriously !

.All these I see; all these I saw till my eyes grew sore, and my mind grew bored, and my soul went bald, with
no cure!

.Only then was I…FORCED TO SEE THAT:

.the strength of d paint is in its brush control.
.the strength of music is in its sound control.
.the strength of poetry is in its rhyme control.
.the strength of wealth is in its debt control.
.the strength of sanity is in the mind control.
.the strength of our future is in OUR now control.
.the strength of Nigeria is in our WORDS control.
..Coz as “GOD BLESS AMERICA”, is prayed without hysteria,

.you are NIGERIA!
I am NIGERIA!!
YES! WE ARE NIGERIA!!

.so what WE gonna do ’bout that!!

..all these I see, right through these blindfolds called
NOW!!

‘coz the future of NIGERIA is ours for the speaking!!”

 

 

written and recited by Irewole “.meteorite.” Akintayor at LOPR Season3, Episode2.

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