LINES AND VERSES

Now you wield authority We languish in your ineptitude You flourish upon our common wealth And sprinkle petite succor Though chosen to guard our rights Our rights now you rape But we long not to break the commandments We long not to test your might We long only that find your conscience Find the path to the people Man whom we bestowed our trust You hand us fragments of what truly are ours But we desire not your charity For we employed your honesty J.Ifeme Elo ©2009

Don’t point mother in the face Or ask father why he missed his place Don’t push grand mother to improve her pace Or ask grand father why he stares into space For time will come when you too will lose your grace J.Ifeme Elo Collections ©2004

Will my dreams change me? Will my ways save me? Will the fires of desire Give me onto the red herrings; approximate the truths? Should I fear the things I’ve fought, let my tears becloud my thoughts? Should I give-in to the unknowns and save these daily battles? Should I let go the past, free my soul from the shackles of my childhood memoirs? These things refuse to vanish, won’t be vanquished. And I ask; Should I mind-stop the wandering, and pondering, Avoid the many wonders of life? Should I drift from these things I greatly sought, that have silently rebuffed my trawls? These things for which I have become a stranger onto my self, These things that refuse to be known. J.Ifeme Elo Collections ©2009

“Tinin! Tinin, my boy!” Paja called in Qonga. Tinin, a skinny boy with bulging eyes and ears unfairly large for his narrow head shot out of the hut like a routed hare. “Aya, Papa.” Welcome, papa; he shouted as he rushed to Paja. First he took Paja’s old hunting gun, rested it on the mud wall of the hut, while Paja waited with the carcass of a gazelle which slouched around his neck. It gave him pleasure to watch the little boy unbundle him whenever he returned from hunting. He stood waiting. “Let me help you, Papa,” Tinin offered excitedly, even though he knew Paja could do it all by himself. They both enjoyed this moment. Paja stooped and allowed him ease the dead gazelle from his shoulders and together they dragged it to the fire place. It was at such moments that Paja secretly mourned his long dead wife. “Is it male or female, Papa?” Paja laughed crookedly, “my boy, it is a full grown male and you will have his ropopo.” Tinin laughed mischievously. That was one of the epit

Fists and Handshakes (Ben’s Diary II) Dozie and I were laughing over what Pat had said about four guys like us hanging out all by themselves every Friday night, that there was something ‘not-straight’ about it. Darlington was going to say we should leave without Goke. Then everyone suddenly went hush. She had what it took to stop any man in his tracks, and I thought she knew it. We must all have seen her at the same. “Hi.” She said to Darlington. Darlington had this gift; they all talk to him first, even if there were a million of us. “Hi beauty, what can we do you for?” his ladies’ man smile flashed, and his right hand instinctively reached for his collar twitching the tie as he stood up. He probably forgot he was only a visitor to our office. “Stephanie, this way,” Pat called at the young lady. “Oh Pat, thanks,” she seemed relieved and waved Darlington down, “I was going to ask of her,” she explained as she acrossed to meet Pat at the other end of the office. There was something uppi