LINES AND VERSES

You could see him on the busy avenue Searching for someone new, on faces he hardly knew. Every hand is a helping hand Holding out a magic wand And his life he meekly offers to their transformation Which seem, each day, to be on its way though on crutches. He would smile to your scorn, Flinch to fun… And plead to your humanity, If you’ve still got one. “Brother, please…” Do you need to hear his tale To know he has pain? Can’t you see the boulder On his shoulder? It tells in his voice He’s made a hard choice How far can you go To help another man’s ego? He knows what it means To live without means Crawl amongst the rich Choose between poverty and disease. 2009©J.Ifeme

A sudden pang of pain hit my left arm, then my left lap, and swiftly some sort of paralysis grazed all the energy in the muscles. Slowly it got darker, and darker, I knew I was sinking from the sun, from everything I knew; my family hundreds of miles awaiting my return, my friends who sensibly played it safe at the shoreline. An hour or so earlier, we had arrived the beach, a team of new colleagues. That was to be our final picnic before we were scattered across the country, after a rigorous six month training course in telecommunication. It was my first time on a real beach. Maybe I wasn’t aware of the danger yet, but I was sinking, sinking on my first day in an ocean. The pain in my muscles was racking my brain and I couldn’t move the arm and leg, and the other two good ones were perhaps still waiting for an impulse. Maybe my body was stupefied or something, but my mind still was unperturbed. There was a flash of my childhood. Back then when nakedness meant nothing, I had

The raging wind is her being Her breath will ravage your skin Chill your bones till they go stone numb And soon you’d be collecting broken strands Of your hair Like those dead leaves she feeds the patched soil She is here… Moisten your lips or you’d be sorry you didn’t Clad your self in wool or you’d be sorry you didn’t She is here… She rapes the trees bare Renders the sun a shadow of itself And drinks the rivers dry She is here… Mother of dust and dryness Princess of the Sahara dunes Yet she has no ear for poetry No fear Her music is rufflerustlesqueakcreak You are left to wonder how she dances through Such clatter Or even make it through her own haze With ferocity she has come to reign Having just seized the rain Like a bold thief she will bang on Your windows and door While you snuggle deeper into the sheets Still wonder why they call her Hamattan? 2009© J.Ifeme