The Nuclear Ghost Towns
The Nuclear Ghost Towns by Adeola Ikuomola The moon is a spark on decency Swashed in colourful eloquence With live pollen, petal and sepal Mourning with a weeping dawn The moon is a spark on greenery Like virgin rains on the rainbows Baking emeralds for embryology To cleanse the stain […]
The Conditional
Say tomorrow doesn’t come. Say the moon becomes an icy pit. Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified. Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire. Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks. Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain. Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter. Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse. Say we never get to see […]
The Ugly Little Bird
The Ugly Little Bird by Admiral Mahic Someone has pulled me out of the grass Because I had fallen From a black branch. O sweet! O wild! The cats are evil here! O am an ugly little bird – with my soft beak I keep pecking at the running […]
Not A Star
Not a Star by Adonis Neither a star, nor a prophet’s inspiration, nor a face praying to the moon, is Mihyar. Here he comes like a pagan spear, invading the land of letters, bleeding and raising to the sun his bleeding. Here he is, wearing the nakedness of stone […]
Mountain Wellhead
Mountain Wellhead by Admiral Mahic This is where God breathes! Here is the mountain wellhead that cannot believe our bodies are drenched in darkness. Drops of water burning bright like verses from holy books. Here my heart smiles at Goethe’s heart, like a sun at a sun when they meet in […]
Lightning In The Dark Night Skies
Lightning in the Dark Night Skies by Adeola Ikuomola The blue blooded, blue babies of the skies The chief commanders of the blue moons Blue boxing the dark cloud to blue berries From the blue on blue to deep blue stages The calls of the void on the throne for […]
In The Bus That Is Frantically Rushing From Cairo To Port Said
In The Bus That is Frantically Rushing from Cairo to Port Said by Admiral Mahic I could have gotten married in Egypt With one sun ray, That is masterfully openinig gates of fields in front of the bus that is frantically rushing from Cairo to Port Said … Beside me, the […]
Immoral Laboratories
Immoral Laboratories by Adeola Ikuomola Here are columns of fleeing masquerades The old members of immoral laboratories Upon atomic mushrooms’ sulphuric acids Darkness blackens the dazzling complexes Like perplexing unforeseen circumstances In viral antisocial and immoral behemoths Keeping procreation in immoral drainages Like colossal bumps on maritime advances […]
Hope
Hope by Adebanjo Olamilekan Olamide I don’t know what other mortals may choose but give me hope or throw me into the torrents of hell. Where all concepts in this allegorical world fail Hope stays alive waiting for a call to pick up If hopes weren’t free, rich men won’t […]
Hope And Riders
Hope and Riders by Adebanjo Olamilekan Olamide I don’t know what other mortals may choose but give me hope or throw me into the torrents of hell. Where all concepts in this allegorical world fail Hope stays alive waiting for a call to pick up If hopes weren’t free, rich […]
Do I
Do I by Adetokunbo Hussain Do I disappoint you? Perhaps because of my words or maybe it’s the lack of it? Do I disappoint you? By what I did or do? or perhaps what I didn’t? Am I the one you want me to be? Am I your type […]
Communal War
Communal War by Adeola Ikuomola Hellish! Complicated Bitter and vitriolic Contempt and anger! The slippery words Beaded with bleeding gums In the chalets of the bloodiest lips Bear hostilities and military campaigns. Darkness stands Mourning the demise Of the genetically terminal light On chariots of thunders to obscurity! […]
Blank Dreams
Blank Dreams by Adebanjo Olamilekan Olamide To terminate words is that all must dream, the many by nighttime. Nights that are turning points ushering us into dreams The history of ourselves tells us of an image of the immediate future meant to rip our hearts as what we fear in […]
Before
No shoes and a glossy red helmet, I rode on the back of my dad’s Harley at seven years old. Before the divorce. Before the new apartment. Before the new marriage. Before the apple tree. Before the ceramics in the garbage. Before the dog’s chain. Before the koi were all eaten by the crane. Before […]
Again
sunrise this painted lady i cannot take my eyes off & by noon i am drunk on her perfume clutching this wild bouquet between my teeth stumbling up the aisle of spring as if this all wasn’t new not at all concerned with my reputation California’s Lost Coast […]
A Voice
A voice by Adonis Mihyar is a face betrayed by its lovers. Mihyar is bells without chinning Mihyar is inscribed upon the faces, a song which visits us secretly on white, exiled roads. Mihyar is bells of wanderers in this Galilean land. Songs of Mihyar the […]
A Toast To Nations
A Toast To Nations by Admiral Mahic Nations and nationalities, you are not chocolate, you are the sweetest Jam cooked from bitter labour! You are the original egg, the supreme cause of war and peace! You are the homeland of the rising sun and moon. You are the cameras recording from […]
A Supplication
Awake, awake, my Lyre! And tell thy silent master’s humble tale In sounds that may prevail; Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire: Though so exalted she And I so lowly be Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony. Hark, how the strings awake! And, though the moving hand approach not near, Themselves with […]
Written Juice Lemon
Whilst what I write I do not see, I dare thus, ev’n to you, write poetry. Ah, foolish Muse! which dost so high aspire, And know’st her judgment well, How much it does thy power excel, Yet dar’st be read by, thy just doom, the fire. Alas! thou think’st thyself secure, Because thy form […]
Written In Juice Of Lemon
Whilst what I write I do not see, I dare thus, ev’n to you, write poetry. Ah, foolish Muse! which dost so high aspire, And know’st her judgment well, How much it does thy power excel, Yet dar’st be read by, thy just doom, the fire. Alas! thou think’st thyself secure, Because thy form […]
Wit
TELL me, O tell, what kind of thing is Wit, Thou who Master art of it. For the First matter loves Variety less ; Less Women love ‘t, either in Love or Dress. A thousand different shapes it bears, Comely in thousand shapes appears. Yonder we saw it plain ; and here ’tis now, […]
Welcome
Go, let the fatted calf be kill’d; My prodigal’s come home at last, With noble resolutions fill’d, And fill’d with sorrow for the past: No more will burn with love or wine; But quite has left his women and his swine. Welcome, ah! welcome, my poor heart! Welcome! I little thought, I’ll swear (‘T […]
Vote Excerpt
……… This only grant me : that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honour I would have, Not from great deeds, but good alone ; Th’ ignote are better than ill-known, Rumor can ope the grave. Acquaintance I would hug, but when ‘t depends Not from the […]
Usurpation
Thou ‘adst to my soul no title or pretence; I was mine own, and free, Till I had given myself to thee; But thou hast kept me slave and prisoner since. Well, since so insolent thou ‘rt grown, Fond tyrant! I’ll depose thee from thy throne; Such outrages must not admitted be In an […]
Tree Knowledge
THAT THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE. Against the Dogmatists. THE sacred tree ‘midst the fair orchard grew; The Phoenix truth did on it rest, And built his perfum’d nest; That right Porphyrian tree which did true Logick shew, Each leaf did learned notions give, And th’ apples were demonstrative; So clear their colour and divine, […]
To The Royal Society
I. Philosophy the great and only heir Of all that human knowledge which has bin Unforfeited by man’s rebellious sin, Though full of years he do appear, (Philosophy, I say, and call it, he, For whatso’ere the painter’s fancy be, It a male-virtue seems to me) Has still been kept in nonage till of […]
To The Lord Falkland
FOR HIS SAFE RETURN FROM THE NORTHERN EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SCOTS. Great is thy Charge, O North! be wise and just, England commits her Falkland to thy trust; Return him safe; Learning would rather choose Her Bodley or her Vatican to lose: All things that are but writ or printed there, In his unbounded […]
To Sir William Davenant
UPON HIS TWO FIRST BOOKS OF GONDIBERT FINISHED BEFORE HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA. METHINKS heroick poesy till now, Like some fantastick fairy-land did show; Gods, devils, nymphs, witches and giants’ race, And all but man, in man’s chief work had place. Thou, like some worthy knight with sacred arms, Dost drive the monsters thence, […]
Thisbes Song
Come, love, why stay’st thou? The night Will vanish ere wee taste delight. The moone obscures her selfe from sight, Thou absent, whose eyes give her light. Come quickly deare, be briefe as time, Or we by morne shall be o’retane, Love’s Joy’s thing owne as well as mine, Spend not therefore, time in […]
The Wish
Well then; I now do plainly see This busy world and I shall ne’er agree. The very honey of all earthly joy Does of all meats the soonest cloy; And they (methinks) deserve my pity Who for it can endure the stings, The crowd, and buzz, and murmurings Of this great hive, the city. […]
The Welcome
Go, let the fatted calf be kill’d; My prodigal’s come home at last, With noble resolutions fill’d, And fill’d with sorrow for the past: No more will burn with love or wine; But quite has left his women and his swine. Welcome, ah! welcome, my poor heart! Welcome! I little thought, I’ll swear (‘T […]
The Vote Excerpt
……… This only grant me : that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honour I would have, Not from great deeds, but good alone ; Th’ ignote are better than ill-known, Rumor can ope the grave. Acquaintance I would hug, but when ‘t depends Not from the […]
The Usurpation
Thou ‘adst to my soul no title or pretence; I was mine own, and free, Till I had given myself to thee; But thou hast kept me slave and prisoner since. Well, since so insolent thou ‘rt grown, Fond tyrant! I’ll depose thee from thy throne; Such outrages must not admitted be In an […]
The Tree Of Knowledge
THAT THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE. Against the Dogmatists. THE sacred tree ‘midst the fair orchard grew; The Phoenix truth did on it rest, And built his perfum’d nest; That right Porphyrian tree which did true Logick shew, Each leaf did learned notions give, And th’ apples were demonstrative; So clear their colour and divine, […]
The Thraldom
I came, I saw, and was undone; Lightning did through my bones and marrow run; A pointed pain pierc’d deep my heart; A swift cold trembling seiz’d on every part; My head turn’d round, nor could it bear The poison that was enter’d there. So a destroying angel’s breath Blows-in the plague, and with […]
The Thief
Thou robb’st my days of business and delights, Of sleep thou robb’st my nights ; Ah, lovely thief, what wilt thou do? What? rob me of heaven too? Even in my prayers thou hauntest me: And I, with wild idolatry, Begin to God, and end them all to thee. Is it a sin to […]
The Spring
THOUGH you be absent here, I needs must say The Trees as beauteous are, and flowers as gay, As ever they were wont to be ; Nay the Birds rural musick too Is as melodious and free, As if they sung to pleasure you: I saw a Rose-Bud ope this morn ; I’ll swear […]
The Request
I’AVE often wish’d to love; what shall I do? Me still the cruel boy does spare; And I a double task must bear, First to woo him, and then a mistress too. Come at last and strike, for shame, If thou art any thing besides a name; I’ll think thee else no God to […]
The Praise Of Pindar In Imitation Of Horace His Second Ode Book 4
Pindarum quisquis studet oemulari, &c. I. Pindar is imitable by none; The phoenix Pindar is a vast species alone. Whoe’er but Daedalus with waxen wings could fly And neither sink too low nor soar too high? What could he who followed claim But of vain boldness the unhappy fame, And by his fall a sea […]
The Parting
As Men in Greenland left beheld the sun From their horizon run; And thought upon the sad half-year Of cold and darkness they must suffer there: So on my parting mistress did I look; With such swoln eyes my farewell took; Ah, my fair star! said I; Ah, those blest lands to which bright […]