Read Time:1 Minute, 21 Second
Enters the legend—of focus, of belligerence and victory heretofore contested Enters a writer—my head is my home, and in this home, rest may not prevail A pointed ladle filled with ink yet drains life from me by prose, by stanzas... till I can no more, till the last stop on the page before I begin another With every lying wake I arise anew with thoughts overflowing Albeit some mornings, with shores of inspiration hard from desiccation as baked bricks in ancient Egypt If the ideas come, if they come not, still I muse I tell stories of death, no! I write stories of resurrection Stories of a boy straining from ocean depths and a girl fanning ice to flame In my path, I am many things—a chef serving a menu of bitter-sweet a fool, oblivious of all reality, all truth, save the doctrine of them with fuller ink ladles or the writer himself As the world eats itself or leaves me in the past, I yet write I spin stories of war, no! I write stories of vanquishing Stories of armies, staggering forces locked in battle To die is not defeat and to live is not victory Our war cry is the urging, and our banner the encouragement When the field is ridden with the screams of our hush, and our banner, our enemy's then we are defeated and shame is our lot I am the writer, another of my kind In this war the ink is my blood and victory will be mine...
Adereti Ayomide Oluwaseun is a Nigerian poet.
