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POETS ARE LIARS
Do not take these lines to heart for they're the many facetted words of a poet open to an endless sea of intentions. Mind you, 'poets are liars', they say. Do not give them thought either no, for they're elusive like the whooshing sea breeze & thus do not hold for you even a pinch of salt, let alone pass for a discourse. Pass on without a word pass on as cold as a raspy harmattan morning, bland & husky with fog Pass on as deaf as a stone to the fetching syllables of this verse for they're the slimy old serpent waiting to beguile you into the things to that you should keep away from, that drives one to the edge of the cliff. Pass on as keen as a distant stranger for this verse is not for you & is aeons far from you like the cerulean sky from the deep blue seas! Pass on complacently & without a grain of empathy for these lines for poets are epistemic lunatics hopelessly lost in the utopic jungle of their thoughts. O you must watch your steps even as you pass by & never fall in love with this poet lest you forget your gold in his poems; fall asleep on delilah's thighs & wake up a slave to a habit of perpetual anguish For his words are charming & succulent as mango fruits & bitter-sweet & stale as vinegar & robs you of the peace & bliss of innocence O poets are liars, are scheming, quixotic minstrels who more than often, knows better than the truth, to dazzle folks home with gongorism & striking metaphors into battle with the world, armed only with the cudgel of pain & dissent.
DO NOT WAIT FOR ME, BELOVED
Do not wait for me, beloved on the other side of this poem where the sun is presumed to dissolve at eve like a passionate lover into the waiting arms of the deep blue seas, expecting me to serenade you to sleep like the lulling night breeze; expecting me to turn water into wine, to bring the dead back to life like Jehovah Jireh, No, move on, Chéri for the sun's faded out & the butterflies have departed for elsewhere, leaving each flower to its fate like the cukoo bird does its young. All that's left are nostalgic memories of the past we refuse to let go. All that's left are shadows of the sunny days we can no longer have.
MEMORIES I
Each passing day like a courier, comes with picturesque souvenirs of the past, with bitter-sweet memories of memorable moments lost to the ironic winds of time. O' what wistful bliss pricks the heart of man in remembering the sun-soaked memories we made in our time Indelible memories as keen as the perpetual rising of the sun at break of day & its selfsame setting at eve Which is between us now crossroads of nostalgia one cannot feign to forget in a lifetime, to which lovelorn, I ache to return, like a weary voyager to the soothing air of home, when like a crab, I crawl my way back in retrospection down memory lane to the good old days of rainbows and starry nights when we kept dusk at bay with passionate eyes brighter than sunrise when the soothing sun daily beamed radiant and gay. Alas, how dreamfully I crave those sunny days and wish, like wretched beggars for steeds they may never ride that the sun does not set today and deprive me of this vintage.
Emmanuel Karibi Obuala is a Nigerian poet. He was born in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. An alumnus of the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island Bayelsa State, Nigeria, Obuala served under the National Youth Service Corps at Gusau Polytechnic, Talata Mafara, Zamfara State. He had previously taught English Literature at various schools. Obuala’s poetry has appeared in several magazines, anthologies and journals in Nigeria and abroad.
