segun Johnson Ozique Poems

I looked hopefully to the wise for answers
To quench my taste and hunger
For knowledge, insight and direction
...

So came the day we were in procession
Of craniums hung, bowed
Watching helplessly,
Our mildewed buds of love, fallen
...

To the curve and home stretch we turn
As with my son we walk, leisurely, our streets
So too, the long day wane, coming on twilight
And the sun move to rest behind the surrounding hills
...

What is the driving force, why sometimes, the clamour
Perhaps may just have started like a joke; then again
Poverty, anxiety and fear creeps on you on unknowing wee hours
And, when it becomes excruciating, there, rooted, is the rhizome
...

What is like to love?
Beyond the dialectic dauby of the eyes?
Beyond the swells, the appetitive lure to drool
Her heel, her helm, her wig; her phenomena attires
...

I wonder why this is
That when it comes to my profession,
I can off the specks, and put the sparks in people's eyes
But can't do nothing; take out the log off mine: that is;
...

Back in the journey of time I went once again
Back to the creaking bed of you, I, four legs, one heart
To the time when no nights or day passed in vain
To a time so strong was the feeling returning home to you, was
...

Her only son, like a star I shone as I attended her farewell to new life,
But truly, I was gloomy, wishing to be anywhere but there.
I danced, mingling heartily and smiling pretty, my spirit visibly on high,
But actually, wished I could slap freeze all faces that smiled back at me.
...

To be a star, when you are kinless, vagrant, forsaken,
Have your side ruled by long line of joyless faces,
Bombarded by army of no well wishing passers-by:
This happens; but only does when you are gone.
...

Thankfully; timely, my inner eyes saw beyond
His sweet, snowy daggers
To the million deceitful frolicking germs
Buried deeply in his cavity
...