Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts

Monday, 31 December 2012

…from prison…

I wrote this poem one night, thinking about the light that illuminates the prison cell. You may never have been behind bars but you may have been imprisoned in the cell of isolation not solitude, desertion not retreat, anger not love, fear not confidence, despair not hope and servitude not service. Indeed, from prison have emerged some of the greatest characters in the world - Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Wole Soyinka and Angela Davis. You can make great your prison experience and come out as a great character to illumine the world...


… are you stranded…
… looking for the way…
… out of the prison cell…
… out of the mountain of torture…

… I was once a prisoner…
… maybe, I’m still one
… perhaps, not as heroic as Mandela…
… maybe, not as infamous as Anini…

… but from the cell…
… I garnered bits and pieces…
… of information to better my life…
… knowledge, no other place was to better offer me…

… in the cell…
… the prison guard stripped me…
… leaving me naked…
… as he sprayed tear gas in my windowless cell…

… branded as a felon…
… I suffered brutalities…
… and more than the cell’s indignities…
… I suffered desertion from my loved ones…

… indeed…
… in the cell…
… I was in the lone…
… and needed someone as a backbone…

… only few…
… few persons remembered the great years of yore…
… those were my soulful friends…
… who knew the virtue that took me to jail…

… day by day…
… as I pass through one ordeal or the other…
… I needed no philosopher to tell me that…
… that there’s a spiritual reality in the universe…

… I needed no one to tell me…
… I saw the lines of truth…
… buried deep in layers of history…
… that spirits dwell in bodies…

… it was from the cell…
… that I grew tall in understanding…
… the art of living…
… and from the most-dreaded, I became the most esteemed…

Saturday, 15 October 2011

MOTHER AFRICA SO TENDER

If on the way I flounder
My being goes to Mother Africa so fonder
The mother to my plea hastens
And to my cries, she listens

Mother Africa so tender is black
So gentle, making me happy with no attack
Caring with immense love
Seeming to come with no bitterness from above

My life's been so dull for a time so long
Going after nothing as my own
Mother Africa now fills me softly deep inside
Freeing me from emptiness, gloom and pride

It's time for me to embrace Mother Africa so dear
To cling to her ever so near
Loving her so true, never to ignore
My feelings for her are stronger than ever before

Thursday, 8 September 2011

WHAT A WORLD!


When you toil all day
Putting all you have and time
Like a man forever thinking of the world to come
And people frustrate you

When another toils far lesser
Doing nothing but rest all day
Like a man seeing not beyond the day
And people eulogize him

Oh, since the world is not ours to control
Calm we must always be
Working as we walk in whatever direction the world takes us
For love’s sake

Oh, what a world we cannot explain
A world greater than all great sciences
Yet appearing often mysterious
We can’t but remain humble
For love’s sake

Tuesday, 30 August 2011

YOU CAN DO IT

Don’t belittle yourself, weighing yourself in people’s scales
Because you are unique and special in your own way
Don’t leave your dreams deserted, aiming what people think excellent
Because only you really know what’s best for you
You and your Maker

What’s best for you may not be the best for others
But that does not really matter
Whether it looks great or small in the eyes of men
Stick to it
Embrace it
As though without it, your life is worthless

Live your life pursuing what’s best for you
Never wasting your life leafing through the pages of the painful past
Or even the pages of the future yet to come
Don’t be scared that you may sometimes err
Never give up when there’s still life in you
And never be afraid of taking risks
For ‘tis in them that you learn the virtue of courage
Don’t live your life worthless because all around you seems unkind
Love all men like yourself

Life is not a burden
‘Tis a wonderful journey to travel with love
Just know where you are coming from
And know where you are going
Though it may not always be smooth sailing
‘Tis not a do or die affair
‘Tis only a wonderful experience when you see it as wonderful