Chukuemeka Akpe Poems

A cavalcade of styled Messiahs
A stampede of unfitted Heroes.
Bright candle lights blown out
Scouring the land with blood.
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Unction from above oozes from below as dark, muddy flows
Blessing the land with fame and riches as heaven knows

Pantheon of economic gods quickly demoted to a black deity
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Adorations at dawn stir my supine soul wide-awake
Imploring serial banters of roosters rudely unheralded.
Genuflecting knees and yawning hands offering thanks
Invite the neighbourhood with tambourines and hymns.
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Moods oscillate in cadences of peaks and valleys
Music to fractious emotions on greasy dance floors
Mistimed cues of flares smouldering relationships
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Millions of minutes
swiftly spent at this stop
countless mementos garnered on the stay.
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Kilimanjaros!
refuse heaps dot the skyline
obstructing nature’s lights.
Rags-to-Riches mountaineers
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Quadrennial rituals
of avowals and disavowals
all too soon forgotten.
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Ominous clouds
sent the sun into hiding

Making the day
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Vagrants
filing out of night shelters
converge at sheds all over town
to imbibe morning elixirs,
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N inety flagship years now unfurled
mapped with the isolations of grief
wrinkled joy of a colourful dream.
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