Society Poems
rusted edges, burning gears
by Rikske Kessner
The gears don't just turn;
they gnash—teeth of industry,
blood-stained from forgotten hands.
Whispers don’t drift;
they crack like breaking glass,
but no one listens.
Faces sink into hollow screens,
cogs spinning louder than their voices.
......
Thrown
by Aynia Moreaux
Torn, like paper shreds
Thrown to the wind
The hands tossing the pieces pay no mind
What direction the breeze takes them
Only focusing on their own stumbling paths.
Giant of Africa my Foot
by Graham Ereks
The giant of Africa
The almighty Nigeria,
I salute you, my country
For indeed you are a giant.
Your people are weeping,
Praying that Nigeria
Be better one day-
Fifty years after independence
The citizens are still living in paucity,
......
In One City
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
I know a funeral when I walk into one
I can tell between a funeral and a burial
They are two entirely different artworks
One is done on grand canvas, with drunken strokes
Of sashaying brush and bleeding paints;
The other is done on mere sand, with foot and hand,
Forming sandcastles built by toddlers.
I know too well because I have my senses
Intact after the last funeral I attended on a gambolling coast.
I should know because I participated in the burial of a
......
The last original idea
by Thomas Gallagher
There will come a day when the last original idea is birthed
An immaculate conception
Unlike so many others in it’s time
It is a beautiful thing that needs space to grow
And it sings like no bird before it
......
Gone Are the Days
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
I look back to the halcyon days
When Mrs Johnson,
A comely widow, ran fruitful
Errands for the new railway, and for
Our undeveloped district.
A frail, little maid in green cardigan
And sable wool hat for new mourners,
She read the New Testament
With zest, from Matthew to Revelation.
And she battled with the stress of inheritance
......
The Ladder of Society
by Igor Vykhovanets
"Greatest gifts," they preach and reign,
Feeding worlds with hollow dreams.
"Communism"? Just a chain,
Fascist care behind the scenes.
Show your pass—submit, obey,
Tolerance rules all around.
Yet the brave, in their own way,
Fight beneath where dark is crowned.
......
Silhouette of a Stranger
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
The bloody stranger stank of rank grass and
Animal grime and strutted unnoticed on
Our threshold on a long, misty night.
Lightning, unaccompanied by rain,
Exposed his grisly image,
Comprehended quickly by the village griot,
A humepenthe with seeing eyes, though blind,
Who could smell danger even from long-dug holes of
Doss-houses from distant caverns.
......
Echoes from a Dark Corridor
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
I
Promises are yet unripe.
Trumpets and cymbals from callous pimps
Across the desert reach our aching ears
Night and morn bring forth silhouettes of
Inebriated masquerades armed with whips adorned with
Thorns.
What’s more, their breaths are stale.
......
Thrown
by Aynia Moreaux
Torn, like paper shreds
Thrown to the wind
The hands tossing the pieces pay no mind
What direction the breeze takes them
Only focusing on their own stumbling paths.
