Earth is not our Home.
As I watch the stars paint beauty on the face of the mourning sky,
Like a smile on the face of a soldier who just thought of home:
Many questions walk through my mind
Hoping to find answers from this aging mind of mine .

Why plant a beautiful garden of flowers
And let snakes live beneath it as a home?
Why let the devil into the garden of Eden
If it’s a paradise made for men and women?
Why will the gods build this beautiful edifice called Nigeria,
Just to rent it out to monsters of a human called Nigerians?

As I go in search of this questions which has clothed itself as fear in my thought,
I saw a handwriting on the wall of my mind, like the feast of Belshazzar.
“ If the Earth is a restaurant, then Death is the only food on the menu.
Time is the waiter, surely he will serve everyone their order.
Like customers in a restaurant, we will eat and leave the building.
Another will take our seat, while we head to our destination”.

Joseph (2023)

FOOTBALL IS HERE.
The round leather is about to kiss the green grasses.
The whistle is about to take the staff of authority,
As the game that takes men back to their childhood days
Where tears drop like rain from their eyes, begins.

Here, brotherhood is not by blood but by colour of a shirt
And the batch of the team worn by the fellow seated next to you.
Rivalry takes the centre stage as friendship
Is put to bed for more than 90minutes.

Here, our emotions are beclouded by the love of our colour
And Each week holds a story that will be told for centuries.

STRENGTH FROM MY YESTERDAY
Some days I walk into the library of my mind,
To the shelves that house memories of my pains and sorrows,
where each book was written with ink flowing from my broken heart,
All telling stories of the tragic moments of my life.

In many ways, I draw strength from these books
For they sing the ode of my greatness;
Of how I won the many battles life threw at me
And stayed strong in the darkest nights of my young life

I laugh reading the memories that once made me cry-
Memories of days where death tasted better than life.
JOO

As the rains wakes the day,
I gather this body of breathing clay
For yet another day to mould my dreams to reality,
Just like a potter about to make an artwork.

I daily pray for my future , because I am terrified by my past.
So I made my life a movie with changing scripts and cast.
For my yesterday told a story of pains and tragedy
So, I dedicate today into writing a script of comedy for the future.

J.O

SELENOPHILE
If the moon should write the story of my life,
She will poem the ode of a boy who defeated his fate,
By fighting his way out of the prisons of penury
And had his name inked in the book of greats.

If you ask the moon about the boy I was and the man I am.
She will tell you the many times we spoke in silence;
The many times we stare at each other
Like a lover lost in the eyes of each other.

The moon has record of the many times
My eyes drowned my pillow with sorrowful waters;
The many times my thought made my head too heavy for my neck,
That my hands was called to help hold my head from falling.

The Moon knows the many times I went on my knees
Just to pen my worries on the silent night
While hoping the air around will help parcel
Them to the ears of the God of my father’s

The moon knows the reason I smile
Each time I watch her make her way out of the sky.
For she was there for me in my darkest moments
Beaming on me the lights she borrowed from the sun.

JOO

AT THE VALLEY OF LIFE
In those quiet nights where the sky adorn herself
in mourning attire for the painless death of the sun;
I sit with the ghost of my silence fighting the demons in my head,
Hoping to stop my soul from divorcing my body.

Like Abraham counting the stars to number his children unborn
I count the many times I fought the trials of life and won.
How I challenged my fate into a boxing ring for a fight
And came out with belts and medals of victory.

I sit to remind today that yesterday won same war,
Armed with nothing but arsenals of prayer, yet stood tall.
Why then should he lose now that his shadows measures same as his fathers.
For trials are just storms, it will pass, leaving behind a calm.

J.O

I SEE NO CHANGES
As the sun and moon counts our days in this passing world,
I watch as my past cycles back like the Earth walking round the sun,
Bringing back the same seasons of tears, love and fun
That I have inked into memories shelved in the library of my mind.

I have fallen countless times from the days I learnt to walk,
And each fall needed mama hands to pull me up again.
But today, all I need is my will power to pull me out of my pain
And mama heart felt prayers to keep me from stumbling.

In a lonely night where its day was unfair,
I sing myself to sleep with the lullaby of my childhood.
And when tragedy calls, I still go to God for he always makes things good.
For today is just like yesterday, with nothing but a reincarnated sun and moon.

JOO

DOES THE SUN KNOW
Does the sun know that men staked their happiness and pleasure
So that the odd will be in their favour.
As the embark on the journey of turning their dreams into reality
Before the sun journey for another 365 times from East to west.

Does the sun know that from the day a man was born
The world has counted for him the many times he has watched the sun switch duty with the moon
And has grouped it into days, weeks, months and years.
And a year comes where a man will be mocked if his dreams still remains just a dream.

Does the sun know that as it dies a painless death
Forcing the sky into a mourning attire,
Troubled man buries his tired body in his bed
And watch helplessly as his worries walk shoulder high in his thought.

If only the sun knew, maybe it would have tarried a bit longer
Till will turn the ghost of ours dreams into a body reality.
Poet joseph

As the white trees increases in number in the forest of my beard,

And the forest on my head turns into a desert ,

My thought now daily reminds me of the words of my father,

In the nights where his worries makes his heads too heavy for the neck,

And his hands is called to pillar his collapsing head.

As father drowns in his thoughts with hiss and sighs disturbing the peaceful night.

He would whisper to my young ears laying on his thighs;

"My son,To be a man is not easy"

Title : The father I Had

The body of a man is a soil upon which a household is built.
His hands is a fertile soil that grows all that his family needs.
The barn of his pocket stores the needs of his household.
So, father embarks on a daily journey of filling his barns.
.
As the cock sings the dirge of the dying night
And the ode of the king that comes bearing the days light;
Father rises from the grave of his sleep
For yet another day to go grow the needs of his house.

Someday, Father forces his body into the court of a fury sun,
Who gladly pass judgement on his once fresh skin
Other days, the saliva of the cloud is spat on him
So he return home with his drenched body, shivering.

Each day , as the sun goes home for a night rest
Father also return home with smile masking his tired body.

A NIGHT WITH NATURE
Seated under a tree where Birds gather to sing
The accent song passed down to them by their ancestors.
I watched in Awe as nature went about doing her daily duty;
The sun headed home for a nap as he swap duty with the moon
Whom came with her borrowed light to keep watch over the dark night
Like a Mother hen watching over her chicks.
The wind sang the melodious songs that force the trees into dancing
While hitting my tired body like the palm of my Mother’s hands
When she administer sleep piles of lullaby to me, in my Natal days.

I watched as the stars gathered to bring succour to the widowed sky
Who mourns the painless death of her knight in shining Armor.
In her solitude, she voiced her pains to a thousand ears,
Forcing the winds into a fight with countless trees
Before dropping her tears into the mouth of thirsty crops,
Who grows to fill the pit dug in my Stomach.

As the sky cried herself into the dead of the night,
My roof played the dirge of her mourning
While my body went on the journey to dreamland
2021

I stitch these words hoping it will stitch
your broken heart when you read it .
For this ink flows from the River of
My remorseful and guilt filled heart.

I stay awake all night discussing fluently in silence
With the moon and a thousand stars ,
hoping it will take my sorry words to you.
For they only knows how you cry yourself to sleep.

My eyes have become a stranger to sleep;
Each time I close my eyes, I am tormented
By images of you crying you eyes out .
The once pretty eyes that mirrored love.

I pen this words not knowing if it will heal or hurt you more.
I only wish to empty my heart and make peace with my past .
For each day brings me closer to my grave.
And I don’t know if today will be my last .

I am sorry for the lies I sugar coated into truth.
Making you believe in a tomorrow that never came .
I preyed on your ignorance and trust ,
And sold lust to you as love

I lusted over your firm breast, curves and pretty face.
For your were an epitome of a sweet sixteen .
When I fed the demons of my lust,they left,
leaving me lost in the man I have become today .

I am sorry for building a skyscraper of loving memories
On the foundation of my lustful desires.
For when the lust ate of you, it varnished.
Leaving the once admired building crashing down

I know I will always be a sad tale confined
In the shelf of tragic books in the library of your mind.
But if there be a room for forgiveness as you build your heart again.
Please, confine me in the prison of forgotten and forgiven yesterday.
J.O.O

OZOEMENA

This history is carved on the body of my mind like a birthmark
I carry the memories like my beating heart,
For it pumps the pains of yesterday to the veins of my conscience
Reminding me of the horror history that time can’t bury.

My pen bleeds of the blood of a Brothers resting in pieces in an unmarked grave,
A blood that tell tales of Fathers who abandoned home
To fish freedom at the battle field of okigwe,
Fearlessly trading their lives to buy tomorrow for their children.

My pen bleeds for the children who were denied the joy of fatherhood.
Children who started running from the moment of their birth,
For war welcomed them at the gate between their mothers leg
And wore them the shadow of a man at birth.

My pen sheds the tears of mothers who watched helplessly
As the gold at the meeting of their thighs was mined illegally.
Their sucking child made to watch as their mothers mourn in pain,
Planting in them memories that watered the tree of hatred in their heart .

My pen dig up the bodies of men who lie buried in unmarked graves
Their story cannot be buried in same grave where their gallant bodies lay
But should be laid to rest in a book that will live till the end of time
For yesterday may forget their names, but not their legacy

Joseph 2021

As I wander into the wilderness of Manhood
Taking along with me memories of my childhood :
Memories made under the roof and four walls called Home ,
A place part of me still hunger for , as I journey to tomorrow.

On my journey to finding a new home , I learnt
That home is not a place and not a roof with four walls,
But a moment ,and another moment, all building on each other
To create a shelter that we take with us, our entire life.

Home is an idea that only the homeless can fully appreciate.
It’s like a battlefield where love, peace and trust unite
Against the armies of pain and sorrow.
It is a place where we believe in forever.
A moment we pray never ends and wish everything will remain the same.
...
Happy days are missed in the days of sorrows.
This I found as I go in search of better tomorrow.
Each day, I strain my ears hoping to hear mother’s lullabies again
And still wish I could harvest my needs in Father’s pocket ,just like yesterday.

Mother’s Ears no longer hears the pleas of my stomach
And Father’s pocket has become a Barn that feeds only my siblings.
In their Eyes, my hands have become a fertile soil
That should grow and harvest all my needs .

Now I am left in the forest of my own dreams
Handed blunt machetes to chop down woods
Which will build my saving Noah’s Ark in tomorrow floods.
For the clouds patiently awaits me at the mountain of Fatherhood.

If pain is a bird, then it has found a nest
In this empty broken heart of mine.
Slowly it built a home in my heart
With the grasses of my yesterdays horrible memories .

My thought embarks on a journey down memory lane
to unearth the buried mistakes of my youthful past .
My heavy head seek solace on the palm of my hands
As my ears listen to the peaceful words of the ghost of my silence.

My countless hiss and sighs erupts like a volcano,
Troubling the peaceful presence of my silence.
My hiss and sighs flows like an overflowing River,
Emptying its waters into a deepless ocean of fate

TALES OF A NATION
My teary eyes joins my fear-fill mouth
In mourning the fall of a once great Nation.
My Ears now crave for silence
As each Day brings sad tales to her doorstep,
Tales of what a once great Nation has become.

My Brothers from the home of the rising sun
Now walk a path that leads to yesterday.
A path that tell tales of our horror history
Where the brave bodies of our Fathers
Lie in the battlefield, fighting against their country man.

Each morning I listen to the prayer of a widow
As she knocks on heaven’s gate for the sake of her son
Who marched North in service to his Fatherland.
Her knitted words begs not for her son to be rich
But that he may live to breath another day .

The Rivers of blood now flows through the streets of Portharcourt.
I now sleep with open eyes in fear of what the night brings.
“Your money or your life” is a greeting a brother now says to me .
A thousands times , I gladly gave up my golds to live,
As a Brother’s little-metal-friend frightened me.

I watched as a Father’s teary eyes watched his daughter’s
Lifeless body walk the path to a home beneath the soil.
Her blood, inked in the Greenfields of Kaduna.
For In her pursue of Education, she learnt a sad bitter truth;
That peace has left the shores of Nigeria.

(2021)

FATHER’S WORDS
Like a sailor guided by his map and compass,
I sail through the stormy oceans of life
Guided by the wise words of Father inked in the pages of my heart
Till I reach the shores of Manhood, where green is the grass .


Father taught me that men don’t cry,
So, I learnt how to lock my tears in my heart.
Making my heart a cloudy dark sky,
Where the sun that rise each day in the sky of my heart
No longer shines brightly on the surface of my face
Leaving, sorrow , frown and sadness to walk shoulder high
On a face that once knew happiness and smiles


Be Brave and strong like a man my son.
I wore this word like a shoe,
With it I moved through thorns and mines life buried on my path to greatness.
With it, I fought the battle of survival in my darkest night,
And watched in victory as the East gave birth to a bright morning Sun.

..

Dear son, never forget that it’s a man’s world.
These words wore me the Regalia of a king.
And put on my head the crown of pride,
But, placed me on the throne without a kingdom.
Until I realized that kingdoms are not built on the foundation of three legs alone
But it’s built by humans whose sword conquered the army life fought them with
And whose scars tell story of the battles the won in the battle field of life


As age go by I have learnt to see beyond the shores of my Father’s words.
I learnt to cry through my pen
Hence, saving my heart from floods that drowns it in the ocean of depression.
I now grow stronger by sharing my pains and fears
With a paper that never gets tired of listening to me
And braver by stitching my heart with poetic words.

WHEN PEACE FINDS A HOME
My heart no longer beats the rhythm of anxiety
And my tongue has unlearnt the language of frustration
Not because the sun has switched duty with the moon,
Hence chasing away my darkest nights
But because, my mind has drank from the waters of reality.
Each morning, I wake up more confident than how I embraced the night.
As happiness has now found a home in my heart.
I pray, hope and still lay hold to faith,
But I have buried the belief of predestined fate.
Why wait for the gods to move you up the mountain
Like a baby backed by her ever loving mother?
When your bones can carry you half way to the mountain top.
Why sugar-coat the lie that only the gods
Can turn water of wishes into wine of reality;
When the grapes and palm trees wait daily to quench our taste,
If only, we can be willing enough to transform it to a tasty wine.
Why should I wait for the gods to make me into the man I want ,
From the clay that give life to Adam in Eden.
When I know I can mould the clay of my wishes into being of reality,
If only my hands can dig and romance the dirty soil.
If my crops should die because the gods stopped the rain;
I will farm again!
Till the rains become too heavy for the sky to hold .
Should I bleed my eyes in mourning for no fault of mine?
I will only cry if my tears can replace the rains.
Why should I strain my eyes looking for rainbow in a dark cloud.
When I can dance to the melodies of the thunder that ushers in my rain.
Or wait patiently till the sun wakes with brightest.
For no matter how hard the storm rage,
it’s just wind, it will pass.

(2021)

As the Sun Dies a painless death,
Forcing the skies into a funeral attire.

Troubled man, buries his tired body in his bed.
And watch helplessly as his worries walk shoulder high in his thoughts.

my thought are like the stars:
countless at night
invisible at day.
but beautiful are they when the twinkle
in the dark sky of my life.
They lead me like a three wise men
into the birth of greatness ,
but drops me at Herod's
where my Adversaries reign supreme.

Joseph ohuche (2020)

The LEKKI STARS
If history is a vehicle conveying today to tomorrow
Maybe , it will pass this road that has our lifeless friends
Painting the Tars red with blood flowing from their wound
Caused by bullets leaving the guns of our once gallant soldiers.

If only the moon had a voice that syncs with our ears
Maybe it would have told better the story of that night
That forced her into covering her eyes as she beholds
the gruesome murder of youths the sun handed over to her.

If truly there is an eyes that has never tasted sleep
But watches us from a home beyond the skies
Maybe, he will have a record of those who fired the coward bullets
And dish them the very meal that sent our friends to him.

History may not find the names of these stars that twinkled
At the gates of Lekki in the night of horror
But we will remember them as stars that forced the world
To look at the sky to see how badly we are clothed in mourning.

[quote author=Kestolove post=96138691]My problem with introvert is that they masturbate alot[/qoute]


LOL...This fallacy.I don't masturbate. I can easily pass as an introvert. so, I can confidently say that some introverts don't masturbate.

AN INTROVERT
In a loud world of different voices
I buried my voice in the grave of my mouth
Not because I am afraid of the words I would say
But my voice has learnt to resurrect at right times

In a world where everyone love to be seen
I choose to mirror my life for my eyes alone
Hidden from the preying eyes of terror-filled humans
And open to the beautiful man in me

In a world full of fake loving people
I have become my closest friend
Being close to the man called me
And the realest part of me is all I find

Call me a psycho or an introvert
Claim I am a loner and unhappy
But I carry a spring of happiness flourishing my life
And don’t wear it on my shirt like you for all to see.

(2020)

Here I seat in solitude stitching my heart
While my thought plays back images of our yesterday.
Our good times force smiles on my face
But it’s quickly replaced by frowns knowing you’re gone.

I searched my thought to find my wrongs
Which I believe was giving my heart to once a stranger
And the tower of love I built with a cold hearted you.
Which now collapse before my teary eyes.

I convinced the doubting me that you will be mine forever
But forever has ended before it even started.
I gave you all my love
But torment and pains is all you had to give.

How could I not see the thorns hidden
In the rose that pierced my heart to bleed.
Maybe the rays radiating from your palm-kernel skin
Blinded my lust-filled eyes from seeing the you in you.



(2020)

LOST IN THOUGHT
As my wakeful eyes stare blindly at the dark sky
With my thought roaming places I have never been,
My ears , lost in the piano of Yanni
And my hands helping to pillow my heavy Head.

I watch in absence as the stars wink countlessly at me
And the moon running like a man on a treadmill.
The cool breeze bathed my troubled body with peace
But in this pool of nature, my mind battled with a thousand unanswered questions,

How did all my eyes behold come to be?
Who created the creator that created all these that I see?
The invisible air that I breath, why is my eyes so blind to it?
These questions roamed my mind hoping to find answer.

These questions brought me a sad truthful realization;
That I know nothing about even the person called ME.
How I came to be and who I was before I came to be
Have always been a thought that leaves my head aching.

As this thoughts lingered in my helpless thought
I closed my eyes , and left my confusion to itself
For this night has no answer to my questions
Maybe, someday these questions will answer themselves.

(2020)

These days, I just hold my pen

and stare blindly at the paper naked before me,

Waiting to be clothed with the best of poems.

The hand is ready to write,

But my thought has divorced his muse.

There is no more poem left in a poet.

2020