Frankly Dedoyin

No human disaster  Gives up its true evil nature  Till a more powerful thing that roars  And truly do bite  Match its potent spells.   Everyone sees the seed growing,  Eye, limbs, brain forming  But none is gallant  To hack the monster while it is still an innocent baby-thing.  Like the proverbial child of the beautiful spotted beast,  It is nurtured Left to live free amongst men They hope it would die when the time comes, Before them, Yet it has outlived all who first beheld its birth.

I wish I could create a program with special algorithms, features in specific local lingo to predict the actions of men before a crime is committed.  Since the greatest weapon is information, I'd like to learn what it takes to get such power and one especially - that creates a mugshot of potential criminals before they get sworn in.  The eye of God: the ray of justice spread across the Earth on behalf of the voiceless and enslaved.  Intelligence to demystified what seems like an impervious thread of corruption.  To separate piece-by-piece every atom of greed before it grow into something radioactive.  To torch these slithering medusan-serpents as endemic as they are.  Intelligence that sees indiscriminately from the hilltop of the street to the tabernacle.  The eye of God: Power that supersedes the evasive nature of the cabals while they permeates every little square inch of the societal fabric.  The eye of God: The ultimate code that bypasses the...

 THE MAGNIFICENT WIND In awe of creation As the magnificent wind. The earth and water may own magnanimous But the wind trumps them deftly. in its palms, holds invisible wisp of life Raises all life forms The trees, the great beasts and the deadliest virus In its shawl, it gives wings to the feeble Safe from the terrible. The wind is a sentinel Working at the silent command of a great general The hand of God protecting his creation From the glowing streams of brass bullets   Encircling in the days of tribulation. The wind has ears It carries the cries of starving babies Across the miles from obscure poverty-ridden capitals To the ends of the world. It bears witness to the sobs of the abused The sighs of the frustrated The prayer of an endangered disciple - Spending adulations on Him. The wind has a eye It sees into the soul of darkness And brings forth the hidden secrets  As we see at dawn. The wind plays melo music  Sometimes it draws on the order of many voices...

NEW LIFE I need a rebirth A new life Of miracles, Devoid of ill winds. A perfect haven of pure tranquility Like a supernatural elixir Inspiring my mind Guiding my every stride Down this eerie wilderness of Becoming... I need a fresh boom To send my doom to its tomb That kills my fears A clean slate, Devoid of yesterday shame Free from the muckiness Of all mental prisons. I need a sweet tomorrow Harvest of the most enthralling, Collages of happiness. Love unconstrained Baubles of restoration, Recovery and hope, A touch of healing... Give me all - every new day - This year.

Title: SECRETS Number of lines: 20 Written by: Akinmayowa Adedoyin Shobo (Nigeria) SECRETS Were our secrets a footstep What a great crevice it would be, More than a thousand earth mower. Were our secrets a trail It would slither like serpents Down an endless maze, we eventually get lost. Were our secrets the great waters of the earth It would be a great Tsunami Devouring everything in its path. Were our secrets a road sign It would surely lead – To the broad streets of Hell. Our secrets are a breathing natural disaster Waiting to happen. Maybe it is just fine to keep secrets secret.

RIPPLES (A 5-minute trance) Over a pool, she steps Fast, stains, red. A drop, Engenders current of images; Like a hologram. One, holds an infant-girl with a straw hat She begins school in the Sahel. Over a pool, she dips one cold night Disciples-in-distress, Sold into child sex slavery, A bolder reality of gloom Death trapped in the locks of her hair. A puerile soul – Bounded by the “love of God” 'Duty-bound to please her lord The virgin gift. Over a pool, she soars into the ‘holies’ Shards of glass flying across realms In the street, her death-locks run wild Trails of bodies crisscross into dust. Beware all sinners and saints!!! Where she goes, The scalding ripples of terror follows.

Title: For A Great Name Written by: Akinmayowa Adedoyin Shobo (Nigeria) Path to success (For a Great Name) Voices arise from the brown hills Little creatures skirting the dusty routes, Of the township Around us – The stench from the billies. We had a dream Boarded across a parched path A course worn out by the feet of our forefathers The checkpoints to success – Ten of them, we are told ( Iwe mewa ). Into our minds, Rolling drums of razor-sharp rune beat merciless The reward - A bouquet of gleaming legacy As awaits the worthy. Faithful, We stand in line for the gashing of our mortal hides Till we learn the letters of life; How our faces smiled To a blissful journey thence. Blinded we by juvenile passion Sweet wounds we bear The great name of our ancestors, we esteem A quest to fulfill As the ones before us. Note: Iwe mewa denotes the educationally system of Nigeria translated in Yoruba language.

Title: Dear Village Written by: Akinmayowa Adedoyin Shobo (Nigeria) Path to success (Dear Village) Dear Village, In our pen-craft we sail The ancient route of the wisdom Much-travelled road to greatness. Into the roaring waters Haunted by ghosts of the ones before us We are capsized, fed to the sea We are lost. Persecuted yet, we march on this quest. Dear Village, In our hands bear, Gem-plated jars filled with flotsams of blasted hopes The certificates we bear, Hung as a millstone about our necks. Dear Village, Those dreams we bore ten years have become men With heaviness in their souls, they lament They still hear the same voices Behind the brown hills Lines made by the strange little creatures The stench of the billies. On the path to success. Still we are - Artists, Sworn to paint you a picturesque future.

MY COUNTRY HOME My country home is an exquisite banquet room Calmly – it sleeps, beneath the eye of our celestial keepers Sewn in the apparel of the red hills A cornucopia - Of the most sumptuous delicacies sprawling the nooks Essence-scenting servings hanging from nature's treasure trove Eat thereof, Grow. My country home is a great farmstead An assortment of yield vast as the streams therein Its mountain-high heads of cereals, Robust as the mighty tubers sprout, Spewing rich harvests of cultural staples, Daubed across the face of the rift valley, We drink of its elixir of wisdom flow. My country home is the theatre room of the human race Interminable baby-booming seasons, Bellies round with a pot-pourri of local dishes, Blooming native herbs - Each potent, like juju wrapped in baubles dripping from rooftops Against lurking evil spirits, We dance and feast till morning crow.

Title: THE DEAD’S PLEA Number of lines: 14 Written by: Akinmayowa Adedoyin Shobo Tell me I plead! Tell me!! How loud, Can the ghosts of our slain heroes scream? How hard, Can this immortal company nudge the survivors of war? Exactly what measure of pain would be sufficient? To be noticed. Tell me I plead! Tell me!! Scream out loud See 20: 20 across the land of the living Hear at the highest spectra of sound Cry if you please The earth is too numb To be alive.

ANGELS LIKE HIM Born of no ordinary woman: A prophetic birth The man of the people For nothing he cared But his chaplet, sandals And a singeing voice. Sanctified by God himself An arch-angel among angels and many men; Leading the redemption horde  On chariots whose fire never dies. For justice he fought fearless Against the beautiful beast. The king is fallen: A crown gleams in the noon sun Beside his lifeless body. Buried between these rivulets; Of blood and brass shells Lay angels like him...

AUTHOR: Shobo, Akinmayowa Adedoyin COUNTRY: Nigeria ABEL When Abel was slain Sweet lamentations rained – Prayed they, our souls Yet poison howitzers we train, ‘Til our ancestral home turn mass grave. When Abel was slain “The Borderless waters” called we, Now two cities bothered by thorny walls Each party howling runes of terror, Buried we - the memories of our sworn allegiance. When Abel was slain In our innocence, we defied puerile fears Made sport of wild beasts Us versus the world: a two-man legion The tragedy of our righteous wrath. When Abel was slain All joy drifted seawards in urns of sorrow Sold for garlands – of shame and vain glory, While tomorrow festers to an unforgiving spirit.

In search  of happiness I sojourn to a land beyond the great seas they say - it is the paradise rich with soul food and titillating music from nature's lips Home of the haves and have-nots where the mind rests from all troubles. In search of hope I must conquer the frigidness of my own kind Do battle with the desert demons though my fit buckle And my vision wobble at the great length to endure onwards, I pursue To the land of promises. In search Of liberty A right to dream Wild as the earth's expanse To walk the glowing street of gold where opportunities appease one like a freewill offering forsake all my present evil I must For 1000...10000 miles i can not tell My body yearns with delight at vthe prospects therefore. I  must conquer new borders Though bordered by many tongues like a creed  nothing must impair the call "sweet paradise" Onwards, the road of my dreams.

Summa Cum Laude Forget not the struggles, Rabbis with fervor, a gospel of love - Arousing feelings of horror at God’s sanctuary, The surprise of impromptu tests; Paving a broad way of mines deep in your soul. Forget not the haunting midnight flames Bleary eye impregnated with fatigue The tremors preceding those rock-hard papers. How you loosed and bound the demons of carryover Lurking behind towering walls of books. Forget not the Oath, Becoming battle-ready like a soldier’s creed, Your baptism, at the river Jordon – The birth place of the greatest disciples A virgin ground to nurture our faith. Forget not the tears, Daubing every script on the day of trial. The fragments of heart breaks; The making of great acquaintances, Upon the hill we walk.

GODFATHER GodFather The insignia of power An exquisite touch of the deified He creates while himself is made Out of immortality. GodFather Chosen to speak The voice of the people The thunderous voice of God. GodFather When he speaks It is the evocation of a far-reaching imminence To the civilian combatants The cabal of headless vested interests. GodFather He's never there Yet his presence leaves an unmistakable haze of stature and respect His subject are willing to die for...

GO TELL IT Go tell it to the mountains, The ever-blooming spectabilis , The rivers that winds through  The cultural murals of the savanna and forest zones, Of Nigeria - The home to God’s people Heaven’s anteroom on Earth. Go tell it over the blue seas To every nation where humans congregate That this vast field was the spot in the Eden garden Where the tree of wisdom sprouted The forbidden fruit of all futuristic knowledge From the Arts to the Science Nigeria: The home to the most abundant cerebral mass in the world. Go tell it to the naysayers  Who endlessly spin bogus statistics  Professing tales of doom Of how the city of Nigeria would wilt By a million fantastical reasons under the sun Yet it defies the odd, proving in many life times. Go tell it to the nations That above all - The natural disasters, conflicts, disease or poverty; Nothing insures the collective harmony of the Nigerian people  Than working the black soil of peace and p...

I AM THE AFRICAN I am the African My skin is as black as the night  Laced with gleaming stars swimming across Like the interior of an exquisite art house,  And the moonlight is an ancient scribe  telling our juicy Africa tales for generations Beneath the endless Black African skies. I am the African My blackness is a great twirling wall  Made strong by tropical rainforests  And savannas that nourishes my kingdom. I am the African The pores of my skin, Filled with deep oases of strength Spewing melanin-thick locks  Holding countless baubles of affection  Every burst releasing sweet pleasure. I am the African The brown hue of my eye contrast  Idyllically with my nicely hewn biology, That keeps the world ogling after my godlike beauty. I am the African My limbs - They are sturdier than the red mahogany, Steady and sure as the day. Everything about me - My colour, my voice, my stride, my essence - Deliberate and una...

A Pill Please: A Poetic Charge    The country dailies are a cornucopia of eye-popping, ear-buzzing scandals. “How can I escape from all of these debasements?” I wondered. One day I went down to the end of town, to the most cavernous part as dark as the troubles that bring us to this part. Our powerful medicine man better known as 'baba' gave me a healing portion. The medicine had worn the semblance of super-secret charm. He said ‘it will cure all your troubles.’ and then I went my way. It was unbelievably potent at first. So effective I began functioning like an ancient alarm clock. Numb to my bland daily routine like a zombie, ready for the day. But was I really ready? I still saw the faces of these demons everywhere I turned - On television; in the radio; on the street; at prayer houses; at school; at play and even the labour camp I call work. They taunted me 'til I went from anxious to suicidal. ‘Funny I thought you had the secret weapon?’ One demon sai...

PAY DAY   The people are on the march again Dotting every street corners Women, children; old and young at heart They perch at every rung of life Like ravens and vultures Whiten with staggering diseases rates, Blacken by mounting death tolls. Some say its recession; others say its corruption For the government, we wait For who's to blame? Stalls are closed Students stay home Machines go cold The workplace now a quiet hollow. Yet our struggle continues - From dawn through the dusk of our daily lives We, common people disempowered Families scattered We toil in tatters still, By the sketches of the blood and sweat along the hide of our bodies, Longing as always for payday.