NOVEMBER

my birth month. i soooooo love november.

NOVEMBER
You stand near the tail end,
Of the calendar’s finger,
Slowly, grinding the year to an end,
But you remain my favourite month.
The month I spurt from my mother cocoon,
A powerful sting I am,
Standing between Libra and Sagittarius,
A medley of colours can exist for other months,
But I reserve yellow for you.
You are a vivacious month,
A potpourri of fun,
So I roll at the drums to sing you.
The talking drums spell out your pregnancy.
You are mine,
My beautiful beau,
You make everyday beautiful and 14th stellar.
Even if you crawl,
I revel in your arrival.
Like the coming of summer in Iceland,
So you have come like the new moon.
Let the festival begin,
The dames shall dance,
And we sing our ethnic tune,
Playing the talking drums and atile flute,
Let the feasting and merriment begin.

DEAREST DEPRESSION

Depression you have been a constant friend, always around, so I write you this letter. Like a cloud hovering in my mind, you descend once in while and becloud my joy. You magnify my fears and doubts, and make me lose confidence in myself. My self-worth slaughtered in you altar of sadness.
But when I am in your state you inspire in me sweet literature, prose, poems and plays. So I feed you to my creative imagination, and it turns out something good and I am satisfied. So I defeat you, I use you for good. The dense cloud is lifted by the rays of my creative writing.
So you are not all bad. You are my muse. I have discovered how to use you for pecuniary gains. So in my journal named after you “depression diary”. I go to you when you land on my soul, and fight a battle with you with words and I win.
I confide in you, let you know my thoughts, tell you my fears. In turn, my words give me strength. So when I read you, I see the weakness and see the solution. I expel you on paper, and you leave my soul free.
Then the beauty on your pages is everlasting. It is a sweet cure when you set in and words can’t come out. I read you and I am healed. I learnt from a wise man that anything can be good or bad. It depends on your views. People view you as a bad thing.
But I see you as something that comes like the wind, I see you as good. Turn you to good, change you to good, your complications are broken simple. I conquer you each time you show your ugly (fugly) face. Dearest depression, you don’t set me down no more, I turn you to joy. I rise above your clouds.

Yours truly,
Your Buddy.

WRITING IS LIKE CHESS

Writing is like chess. The main goal is to win, not to lose. And winning is done, when your readership connects with your work, losing is the exact opposite. To win you have to capture their thoughts and imagination.
You have a plot, a game plan, and a strategy, to swing the game your way to capture their awe and attention, the game is played by two, you in white, and your audience in the receiving end.
You arrange your words, in your board or book. In a particular rhythm and order that would ensure you capture the main prize. Which can be a message passed across, and some cases their followership.
Writing is a thinking process, before you use a word. You think of other options, other substitutes, the repercussions, the reaction, all these you have to anticipate carefully and it is a daunting task. Not for the feeble hearted.
Chess players and writers like quiet space, a vent that allows you filter your thoughts in a logically way, to look across the table and expansive mind field, for actions and reaction, for solutions to problems. They like to play with flair/craft, and beauty, maybe that why they call chess, the beautiful game, for beautiful minds. I dare to call writing that too.
Chess is not easy and it comes with hard work and learning. It requires practice, reading and trying to hone out your skills. It the same with writing, you have to read, read and read, to get the rudiments. To get the different styles And To expand your horizons. And then you reach a level where little work is now required.
You have become a grandmaster, at par with the Wole Soyinkas, Toni Morrisons, Chimamanda Adichies, words come to you like a genie, and obey your every wish. Words come to you like water from a spring. And it flows smoothly and swiftly, each time fresh and beautiful. It implies you have reached the zenith, you win prices, and you win fame and money. That’s the state, we writers aspire to reach, just the same way as chess players.

THE NEW ME

I have learnt to stay alone and enjoy myself
In short, I have learnt to enjoy my company.
I have learnt to sit still and listen to the voices in my head
And the good thing is I can control it.
Tell it to shut up, if the voice is suggesting evil.
Learnt it from the screw tape letters by C.S Lewis
I have an erotic love for books.
I buy books as much as a chick buys shoes and bags
I see bookstore as a partygoer sees a club, I go there every week and leave loaded.
Plus, I am so in a deep love affair with African literature.
Especially, the new (young) writers
Partly because I would soon join them
I am so studying how to be a better writer. Plus, I have an accomplished Nigerian writer as a teacher and friend now.
I have learnt how to handle criticism,
"You didn't do it well here, rewrite, or (better) rethink.
It is good (criticism) because you can only get better if you learn from it
Sorry, if I have not been blogging as often as I used too. It’s because I am doing a lot of reading and learning. It is for our good, I would write better and you would be highly entertained.

NIGERIA AT 49

Today is the forest’s birthday; the lion, the king of the forest, would come out of his cave, and roar loudly. He would stroll round the vast forest, roaring his greatness, His benevolence and good leadership. He would be joined by his family, they would hobnob, about their achievements, drink and be merry.
But it all sounds like the same old music, the real song is been sung by the birds.
The baby has refused to grow
She still crawls at forty-nine
The leaders brought her to this state
They have given her nothing
Corrupt in everything
Politics of the few
They enslave the masses
Eating the national cake in chunks
Leaving crumbs for the hoi polloi
Hope is but a mirage
They are deaf to the song, blind to the truth. So they puff their shoulders and brag of all the good they have done, all they hope to do. Mutter some promises.
My friend the snail (Fr. Mathew Kukah) calls them “accidental leaders”, a colossal misfortune to rule the forest. We all agree. We just hope they realize and things get better. We don’t smile and celebrate the independence, because there is nothing to celebrate, we are rather happy for the free day.