Emmanuel Ayeni Poems

I rose with may 29, hailed as dawn,
a new sun to silence doubters.
I faltered in my course,
I became a shadow.
...

I, this day, crowned in might,
a giant of promise, a bearer of light.
Yet sixty-five years, and what is the fruit?
Wealth in my ground, but hunger at root.
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Hurray! we've got Grads selling water on the street
‎you know, that degree in education was just a sweet treat
‎Who needs a classroom when you can hawk with finesse?
‎Not like they trained for years to educate, no stress!
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‎Oh, good morning to you, shining dead land
‎Your emptiness is a gift, what joy to survive again
‎The sun rises high, in a cloudless, vacant sky
‎Because who needs shade, when you can have a sun-scorched sigh?
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Beneath the weight of lost desire.
A nation's heart beats with fading fire
Discordant notes, a people's pain.
Echoes of a promise, oh! vain.
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‎I am the annual visitor,
‎never late, never absent.
‎Your ministries draft reports,
‎I draft rivers across your highways.
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I live where you drive
the uninvited guest you cannot evict
Your contractors come with their trucks
their surveys, their grand plans
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Tears carved a river down my face,
the first in years, a bitter trace.
I scrolled a feed of broken lands,
ruins slipping through weary hands.
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In this cracked earth, where faith bleeds dry,
Why do our tears fall, yet the heavens stay shy?
You birthed this nation with a sculptor's hand,
Why then do tyrants reign, and truth disband?
...