Dreams

I got a pocket full of dreams.

If they were currencies,

I would be the richest that ever lived.

But they are like air,

Intangible.

But they are as important as air.

Without them life has no substance,

Nothing to look forward too.

Every night I dream.

They make sleep pleasurable.

The dreams are made of ice creams and chocolates.

It’s a pain to wake,

But they inspire my day.

If I can make it in my sleep.

I can make it any where.

I will cloth the dreams and make them real.

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.

UNTITLED

UNTITLED
I walk on the nonexistent path
No maps, no paths
I just go north
And keep right
I would say the road is tough
But there is no road
So I tread on
Towards the sun
I want to moon walk
And dine with the stars
Dance with success
Touch her
Caress her nipples
Make her smile and giggle coyly
I would be radiant
In my elements
I would start now on my upward journey.

FOR ALCOHOL

FOR ALCOHOL
I love alcohol, I drink quite frequently, I love hanging out. I love the music blaring loud from the speakers, love the suya and pepper soup served in bars. What I love more is the high, alcohol gives me, it cures my depression, makes me happy and a jolly fellow. It feeds my muse; some of my best writings come, when I am drinking or later at night/dawn when the effect has rubbed off. So this poem came in one of my drinking binges, it was composed for a chick bursting my brains; the chick is Night train, an alcoholic brand. Enjoy.

In the cool breeze of harmattan
You are my warmth
In the harshness of the wind
You are my shield
In the hurt of my pain
You are my strength
In the tears of my heart
You are my laughter
In the emptiness of my heart
You make me full
When the storm goes rough
You are my shelter
When my heart has been broken to splinters
You keep me together
When I am depressed and gloomy
You make me laugh
When I want to hang out with friends
You are there to keep us happy
When there is no inspiration
You are my muse

DEPRESSION

From writer's block to depression, these are not happy times for me, but i would conquer, i have had wonderful ideas on articles to write, and short stories too, but when i put pen to paper, the words desert me, but poems always solve my probelms, so as always, this poem unlocked the doors of my prison.enjoy it

DEPRESSION

Gnaws me down
Making me feel naught
All my weaknesses enlarge
And my failures underscored
My successes feel minute
My achievement even smaller
Makes me down
I light my smoke
To exhale depression out
But instead it increases
Like cancer in my soul
And my life tape plays
Reeling backward
My flops are highlighted
In red ink
My heart is dense
And I am so down

Drought of words

writer's block is a disease that affects every writer, similar to the pox, children must always have. ideas would come, topics abound, but the words to clothe them would desert me, i would spend hours on end with my biro but nothing, then i struggled to compose this poem, and the walls of the dam came tumbling down, and words were liberated.

Drought of words
For a great while,
Thoughts took great flight,
Like those migratory yearly flights birds do.
My writings fall flatly,
The crashed parts never found.
My muse never lands,
Dancing in my mind,
Never leaving something concrete,
It never ends like an Indian love dance,
With the pretty girl in her lovers arms,
It ends with a hide and seek game,
Leaving me desolate and bare,
Nothing good to deposit on my writing pad,
So I embarked on an odyssey,
To find my missing muse.
It was a stormy voyage,
Fought many hydra-headed monsters,
Lost a number of my crewmen,
To the vicissitudes of life
But I berthed in fine,
Saw my muse in a spring,
She gave me fresh words to drink,
Good songs to sing,
Now I set out on a fresh course,
To spread my gospel of words.