What Would’ve Been

Life would’ve been a romance if Adam was home
And Eve didn’t try to be woke.
We would’ve walked the length and breath of the earth
Without being broke.
We would’ve plucked flowers and laid on grassy sheets
Gazing up at the most beautiful sky.
Life would’ve been a romance if she didn’t want what she already had.
If he was there to remind her what they already are.


He would’ve taken a walk with her deep into the woods;
Stopping at the zoo and playing a game of ‘catch me if you can’ in the cool.
She would’ve taken a drink of water from the purest of rivers
And watched the sun set from its bank.
She might’ve been reminded of what they already had.
And we would’ve stayed the same, feeling nothing of shame


Life would’ve been a garden, green with life and red with love.
Children would’ve stayed innocent and grownups competent.
The wild would’ve not preyed on the tamed.
Evil would’ve not been retained.
Life would’ve been a romance
A walk in the park
A camp around the fire
A picnic at the beach
And a kiss under the stars
Life was meant to be a romance.

Ijeoma Obi
© 2020

Power

I pick my words carefully,
Just like picking white beans amidst the brown

I search for my words carefully,
Just like searching for diamonds in the mud

For words can hurt and draw some hate
Words can destroy and finely create

Words can bring life and can bring death
Words can bring courage and can bring fret

Words fire faster than the ‘bullet full gun‘,
Can murder the next man with a bulletproof vest

My tongue is an organ full of ferocious words,
Always ready to unleash terrifying thorns

Like a sword it can slice, divide and tear down
At times i wonder if this red demon can be dismantled, restructured, redesigned, painted with grace and seasoned with salt to speak positively

I’ve come to realize that whatever I say can become a self fulfilling prophecy
My words can either lift me or drift me,
Raise me or erase me,

Words can liberate and can oppress
They can cause to blossom and can suppress

My words are the most powerful weapons that I posses
My word is power!

Princess Pirinye
©2020

Power Source

As the antelope flees from the hunters gunpowder
As the boat drowns by the sea’s power
As the smokers eye fillls at the opium hour

Fire softens the beans for all devourers
Heat is what we produce to roast our beef at the tower
Looking down from great heights we don’t cower
Like the petals of a flower
Like lift from a stranger
We are helped and protected in dark and trying hours

Call it showers
We bask in the blessings of the Father
Safely hinged and bowered
To a God who has granted us dominion and power

Imani Dokubo
© 2020

Gods’ Of Match

We are a mix for many lands,
We are marching for very far;
In hearts, lips and hands
Our words are weapons of war
The light we walk in shines
Like sun, moon, and star.
Storm cannot shake nor stain
In forms that we are dreams retain;
The strength that makes us whole,
Is alive in us, our words fill every hole
Because the fire that moves is sovereign in our soul.
We are they that have to cope
With time till time retire;
Even though not are desire
For to us to live is Christ
And to die is gain.
We live in the world but heaven
We feed on tears and fire;
By inks, we give back our sheer desire.
We are gods of the match in this march
Generals of the church
This month no souls ever preyed upon
Our inks shall wander cold.

Davidgospel
© 2020

Fry-day

Last night, i got laid
Doubt came to me in my dreams
And had an intercourse with my mind
I am five months gone
Carrying these thoughts around
Hoping to abort this abomination
So, let me break open my insecurities
Hoping to make an omelet
Because today is fry-day

Shots fired
Fear has breathed its last
I am shut fire
Ready to explode at last
This is suicide
I die to rise, call it Easter
Fear skews sight
Jesus fixed it, Bethsaida

I love a meal of eggs,
Egg-xactly omelets.
The way we can whisk two together or maybe more,
Like the intercourse of minds, like the grind of spirits.
And isn’t beautiful, the wet and slip of waters, the freshness like a new day, the way it all becomes familiar and new?
As we sit at tables set before enemies ,
Fellowshipping with sips of living tea and chewing bread alive, making alive,
That the omelet served is faith, the abortion to every doubt.
Isn’t it beautiful, the sparks that fly as iron sharpens iron, and ideas are born for the time they arrive?
Don’t you just love a meal of omelets?

Olaoye Adeleye
Ezeonyeka Godswill
St. Davnique
© 2019

#Fry-day
#FreestlyeFriday

Barren Mother

I have an empty well of a belly.
My womb has known nothing but dying blood all my living years.
I have thought of no one but myself,
Fed no one but myself,
Placed no one before myself,
How do I have a womb except it was made to bear another, and yet
I have no idea what it means to pour a part of myself into another.
“A breast feeding mother?”
That’s a foreign name to me.
“A bread winning father?”
Who dares call me?
I am my own hero,
My own salt,
My own light in a shady place,
Come with me and I’ll lead you into the darkness.
I’d snuff the life out of my light because I do not want to share it.
I’m an evil already happening,
A menace waiting to be uncovered.
My tactics are new everyday
Yet my mind is old.
I am a dirty, dirty soul with a clogged up heart and a rigid body.

This is why I have come before the Rock of Ages,
Before The fire that purifies without consuming to ashes.
My tears produce more salt now than I have ever thought to produce.
I do not know when I ever took lessons from the ocean
But my ill will like waves come crushing over me.
I am caught up in my own dirt web,
Spun in my own fear.
I have come to you as a barren womb in need for a child.
I was born to be mother, now may I know a child?
I have come as a fruitless tree in its season.
As hungry fire,
I’m desperate.
As a docile branch,
I submit.
I accept defeat.
Let your rains fall on this arid land again, Lord.
I admit nothing was ever my own;
As I am left with nothing now I am reminded where I come from.
Give me one child, Yahweh ‘tis All I ask.
Surprise the quick-to-conclude with Your quick-to-deliver.
Let them know when their calling-me-barren tongues call me mother,
Let them know from every side of the flipping coin earth,
That You make the Barren Mother.

Adaobi Chiemelu
(c) 2018