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#ILA5YEARSOFARTISTRY

CELEBRATING POETS


Random Editor's Choice


 

OLD AGE TEAR


How quietly look in the eyes when a smile dies cold tears flowing in a bright old eye like a content flowing from the shore to a quiet shore

where youth has been blooming


tears tones in gray verses of poems wrinkled with the face

mount like a camel with two humps for a purse

the old cheeks in a poverty meal


mouth with cold wrinkled from the frost

gibberish in the language of the unknown pronunciation

alphabet which was known for Hammer

frightened in a curative of the cursed time


on the tidy gray hair gave a silk chord

in the melodic symphony he played on his cheeks

with a note he sang in the heavens in the seventh sky

beauty kept in dry cerach


In ashes the body of her before turning wrinkles will give up equality

in a blind street, these eyes will close. Where a black devil will play

in the old bones


time to put a worried head in the cool ground

and let it dance over the body

eyes from old age with tears dried

leaving without a voice in lavender fields


the Angelic triumph would play on the harps

white angels let the black granite raise on the cross

blood covered with a human stain.


let the bad of the spear celebrate suffering.


© Tadeusz Grela

POLAND


 

The Legacy of Slavery


The memory, a furnace Built up in my heart;

And my lachrymose

Can't puff it off.

Worst still, is its advancement

We are swimming in.


We are not ourselves

Eurobirthed into a disarray.

We are being robbed of

Moral judgement;

And distributing anything ours

In the praises of nonauthochthons.


What is our offense?

The modern slavery is aching;

Our leaders are their missiles.

Why can't we think us?

Oh, the japa! We subscribe to slavery

Now, ourselves.

Imagine Nigeria's top deeds

Against Niger Republic!


This memory, a story

Our children must hear in the moonlight.

What our forefathers suffered

Now, modernized, the worst!

There were events for stories

And History uncurriculumed.


Listen, my child.

Whom you see now

Staring and whispering to you,

Is an image of our fatherland

Now, placed in the middle

Of the widest and deepest sea;

With his hands tied to his trunk

Making the swimming impossible.


My children, hear me,

I have been robbed of myself;

The self of abundant resources

To enrich outside our borders.

My senior children are used as a missile

Against my family to satisfy the offshore!


Help me tell your likes;

The now generation must know

That, whoever uses your father, as a serf

Will never mean anything well for you.



© Ikwulono Mohammed Senison

NIGERIA


 

The Night


dusky beauty

holding thousands of mysteries

enveloping with darkness, profound

provokes curiosities

with its scenic silence


the camouflage of treasures

of starry skies

exuded by incandescent decor

creates magical

Arcadian romance


beneath the firmament

sleeps the whole universe

in a stupor state

leaving all stress behind

resting in most

tranquility and peace


far away from somewhere

a tinge of tangerine hue

glimmers, provides hope

though...

darkness encapsulates

the entire clime


swaying arms of sleep

induces stupor

to all the mankind

after days' long labor

finding some trance

beneath the charcoal skies


stillness has got serenity too

hushed darkness

speaks a lot, though

of relaxation, of calmness

and magnificent repose!


© Seema Sharma

INDIA


 

MY FLOWER is MY POETRY


If you were a flower, what would you be? Me? I'd love to be a Gumamela! This 'complete' flower has a filament that is always heavily laden with pollen ~ attracting butterflies and hummingbirds! Known as Hibiscus, this wilting flower only lasts for a day, then it closes, curls, and falls off.


Nonetheless, this flamboyant flower blooms all year round! It comes in many lovely colors: red, yellow, white, and even purple. That is how I want my poetry to be ~ simple, varied, and blooming!


© Maria Evelyn Quilla Soleta aka Hibiscus

PHILIPPINES


 

DELIVERY


What is your delivery to others?

What do you deliver?

The same package of feelings

That others gave to you

Or something else?

Take care to your delivery

Of words, facts, reactions!

If the package is not ok

Just leave it at the door.



© Bogdana Gageanu

ROMANIA


 

Time to Switch Up


Not suitable for the faint of mind

You been you for decades

You live life in your own shell

You don't know someone is ruling you


The world has always been in color

Music fills a quiet soul

You counted time in white lines and the body was moving even casually


Time goes by so fast like a bat

You sneak looking in the mirror

Knowing that gloomy mode turned you over

You hide your face with great fall.


Your deeds are not forgotten

The light in the tunnel won't highlight anything

You will leave like a bird into the unknown

No word will be left from this wicked


The gates will not be that gracious

You didn't help others with harm

You won't be able to see over the shoulder

You will be left alone to wander in misery.



© Tadeusz Grela

POLAND


 

IN LOVE WITH AN ANGEL


Say to your groping heart, hush, and to your skeptical mind, be still!

I have sainted my soul to your extol,

For your sake I've scrubbed my filthy hand.

And the pristine blood of the lamb has also purged my hellish heart.


Speak and thy servant will take heed,

Teach and my two pupils will be diligent Pupils unto thee -

learning under thy Pedagogy -

To see and to do thy will.


Turn to the stars and let the moonlight lead you.

Follow the footprints of your instinct to this precinct

where I, thy lover lives.

Tell me! Is the imprint of a man's mind in heaven's print not accessible to angels?


I learned that angels don't dwell in hell but

Tell me! Will thou teach me how to build a Nirvana in this mortal world of

darksome inferno - a replica of what an angel will call hell?

Tell me! If I commit myself to thee, are you sure the burning heat

of this world will not cause us to dispel?



© Olusegun Ajayi

"The Pioneer Poet"

NIGERIA


 

BE THE JOY OF DAYS


As vision the layer there...quaint

Where see no man sway;

Inhaling the cosmic zephyr -

Way being of the milky way;

With pulses warm of the naked sun's ember,

My memory of love! gorges faint...


With time! the destroying flood...

Upon its tendency to make remote

They heart, exiling a dream;

And with each day in step in denote

Of sorrow's tangled hymn,

Oh! canter in loneliness! given the nod.


But upon the get of sunlit eye,

Reflects the heart's inflection

Of a smile - revealing life's delight:

And confessed...the sacred crest...of my retention;

Be the disquiet of desired beauty...to sight;

Indeed! be the joy of days! beard of hope...

of a dream romance, that doesn't lie



© Henry Farrell

UK


 

HEARTBEAT AT DAWN


In the quiet soliloquy

Of the quiet night;

Dead in its embrace

Listening to the echoes

Of your heart's beats...


With me,

Wrapped in the quietude

Of your whispering symphony;

My sole, soul's accordion.


Two innocent souls merged,

A Siamese

Forever in your nostalgia

Are we bonded, a body.


Awake I remain monologuing

And listening to the pitch

Of our rhythm

So high as it soothes.


A balm in this cell,

An encystment embalmed

In the cocoon calm

Of your consoling beats.


© Kichime Philibus Elisha

Nigeria


 

ICON AND SOUND


Thinking so deeply

I have wasted so many chances

Trying to find a way

To reach out to you

I'm tired of making excuses.


Your seductive passions

Evoke the consciousness of desires in me

So, take my exhausted heart

To comfort in your love forever.


I'm like an iris floating

On high tides

In an ocean of affections

My emotions are melodies

Of a violin tones traveling through the wind

And penetrating into your mind.


In love, there is no measure of time

Only two bonded souls in a template

Losing or winning is not the question

I can hear the motions of love calling my veins

For it is love, it's the space of life.



© Nasser Alshaikhahmed

RAS TANURA, SAUDI ARABIA



 

Anniversary On the anniversary Of his hand touching My cheek For the first time In that crowded venue I dream of him Remembering the glow inside That I felt all the next day. © Bernadette O'Reilly IRELAND


 

SHADOWS A'SWAYING Shadows a'swaying upon an evening breeze move to an unheard refrain eked out on distant pipes in some remote hinterland unknowable evoking unspoken sorrows and the whispered mysteries of life and death, death and life They mirror the sweep, the pitch and rise astir in the boughs of denuded trees As this way and that they incline yielding to gusts of cool air wafting through the deserted woods While thin clouds ghosts of midnight scud across the heavens fleeing wisps in diaphanous gauze etched upon the celestial canvas as silhouettes ephemeral Transient enigmas gone in a whisper where the spirits of night ever lead afloat upon the midnight scape Ruffling the leaves of weeping willows exquisite of chalk white trunk and stirring the unfathomable waters rippling on a silent lake High above a mortal realm lost in a world of slumber and dreams insubstantial as the cosmic display a' gliding across the firmament awhile © D. A. Simpson UK


 

MOTHER You bore me of uniqueness A skin, Beautiful enough to admiration You planted me hard On a land of treasure With a landscape beautifully laid That my heart groans with joy Who am I to shed tears? Mother Africa Your structure is a beauty That observers stare with saliva They pour out their eyes To have you on their brains Because you're rich Rich dearly that I'm blessed. Oh mama Africa The lakes you poured upon my feet From Victoria to Tanganyika A wholesome of mountain like Cape Zambezi and Nile rivers rich Who are we without your beauty? For us, you gave a rich language background Swahili lamenting beauty Zulu and Xhosa elegantly dancing Hausa and Igbo a nature's safe Up you served us so well Oh Mother. Today I'm in a celebratory mood Dancing to your beautiful music Lingala pacing Rhumba Afro beats a taste of the west Amapiano oh Amapiano

Kapuka rivaling genge

Who are you mother Africa? You're simply elegance Beauty that's ecstatic An aroma of excellence Fragrance that dances on my line I'll forever cherish you You're my home, my mother.


© Dredan Brian 'DRE Arts'

KENYA



 

IF POETRY LEAVES ME

Do you know that my heart bleeds Without writing a sweet melody?

Do you know that my life is meaningless

Without this gentle guy named Poetry?

Do you know that I laid down my life

To rewrite burning tears and sorrow?

If poetry leaves me, order my last tube.

My blood has dried up and faded away.


If poetry leaves me,

The sun, moon, and stars will crack.

And the trees shall blossom in tears.

Even angels in heaven shall moan,

For a tasty pen and paper has fallen.

Oh, if poetry leaves me,

Weep not for my corpse;

The sun has zoomed over my nostrils.


If poetry leaves me,

Collect my broken pieces of words.

And if I sleep with my pen and book,

Order not an ambulance;

Bury me with one of my touching poems.

O, my body shall sleep on ice,

But my words shall arise like dry bones.


So, if poetry leaves me,

Buy me a white book to be covered.

And not a shining or spicy tree.

If poetry leaves me,

Please question the ground.

From him, I was created.

I will reimburse him.



© Gabriel S. Weah

LIBERIA














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