Tony Adah Poems

If men wear an armor of pretense
And scorpion tails become
Their whips on me
If my roses bear thorns
...

Who will not rejoice
At the radiance of the rising sun?
We all will
But be mindful
...

I am an orphan
Crying to the deaf ears of the world
I am deserted
Even the mourning gifts
...

I submit here
A palinode to the world
If I have been a bad bard
Bare of words
...

There is a great race
And for my generation against time
A rat race so too it is
As a sack race.
...

The sea men are at the shore
And the boat is brimful of them
The short, the tall and the fat and the slim
Neat shaven and the unkempt.
...

When the seagull goes home
At twilight the fishermen will move
Seaward and prowl in the turbid water
Of the first to fetch.
...

These days our houses
Hem us in with burglary proofs
Of iron made
The fringes surrounded by
...

The plastic rubber receptacles
Stood in colours of blue, red, green and yellow
Yearning for water and they sat in a truck
The taps are arid with rust
...

So the corpse shook
And woke and staggered
The grave empty but tumulus filled
Mourners agog with jubilation
...