Once Upon A Time Poem by Abdulhafeez Oyewole

In the faraway cloud
Where listening lies,
Where river smiles,
When words speak
And meant to be,
Where wants and needs
Aren’t misconstrue,
Where lizards and gizzards
Wet, calm, hunt and meet and prey.
Tis by this extreme realm
That this goal is set.

One dream
One night
In all nights
Is what’s in need,
That the mission
And vision
World awaits
Will emerge.

Sacred, odd
And silence
Are night themes.
This one night
Comes a fright-
Fire outbreaks,
Catches homes
And fences.
And the news
Reaches the Mighty helm.
“I’m your lord
And is my duty
To protect,
While your right
Is to serve, me- lord”.

This leader leads
The fire extinguishers
To bring an end
To the inferno-
Where canopies
Are eating
And where sapiens
Are sentenced to death
By abrupt blaze.
Canon night meets morning
When the darkness runs
And leaves the heavens
With puffs of smoke
And burn- to-ash
Artifacts
In the arena
Of both half and fully
Baked human skins
And open skulls
And myriad of
Closed facial identities.

The King sobs,
For the Kingdom.
Calming by his chiefs
And calmly walk
To the palace;
Where his ancestors
Roam and home.
And there
He speaks and pleads
With his ancestors
On the causal of this
Unforgotten night visitor.
Then and there they
Weep while saying
For this they do not know.

Silence the king,
Paces and shivers.
At this moment
His ancestors
Turn phantoms
And stay hidden
Behind the walls.

His mother,
Thanks destiny,
Is alive-
Hale and healthy
“Do see my mother
To my Chamber now”.
For his mother
She comes and
The mother he tells.
Her one reply is
'For this, my son
I honestly don't know'……