Strife Poems
Cries of the Country
by Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar
Beyond the crest
Of the peaceful land of ours,
Of love, compassion and humanity
Stares at us cruelly an untrusted masquerading face
With long red greening teeth, hands blood smeared
In their favourite back-stabbing game waged on since long
Unseen and unhidden from us, but exposed to global eyes.
The so called dogma
Of the people beyond, gone astray
......
Desert
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Lamentations alone cannot stop
the bleeding of the land at the ankles,
nor stop the tears of Deluge
Grief matters little in a prophesied
pogrom, for a general death is
not reckoned with evil —
And prophecies shall remain with rain
forty days and forty nights;
......
Guernica
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Dark frame of mind ensconces frontiers
with a blanched dapple of strife.
Hell is let loose on Desert,
bewildered by new griefs of a listless heaven.
Camels hit by flame-tailed arrows
soothe their flayed humps;
other alien beasts hone in one stretch of prayer,
reminding God of the promise of Rainbow.
The prepuce of Desert reclines and
peels off, revealing the whiteness of Death....
......
Death on Demand
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Death speaks one language, profane
And doomed to a lasting fate of increasing
Hate. It hides beneath trackless jungles,
Puking blood in volumes. Staining foliage
Of sacrilege, it renders a jungle homeless,
Preening itself of incestuous ability to kill.
Death resides permanently in Golgotha —
That arena for killing — you well remember it:
......
Earth
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Earth,
that fine, pneumatic
piece of gem from space,
bulbous, bluish with
the hand of beauty
adorned with furry clouds,
yet in closer sense lies
senseless to internal
doom.
The Church
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
During the peace of the altar,
Pews knelt down piously;
The pulpit stood and conducted
Peace;
Verdure, rosary and the paternoster
Bloomed;
And the clergy hummed soulfully.
Seasons.
Roars, rasps and hisses of tension
......
Sleeping Seas
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Tumultuous clouds above keep vigil
On a cold, grey night, mourning the
Killing of visible stars...
Soot-darkness veils the brows of the
Skies in one orgy of perfidy, transmuting
The agelessness of heaven into a
Yolk of newness, fragile and tendril-tender.
Arrogant terns weave mock baskets for
......
Guernica
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Dark frame of mind ensconces frontiers
with a blanched dapple of strife.
Hell is let loose on Desert,
bewildered by new griefs of a listless heaven.
Camels hit by flame-tailed arrows
soothe their flayed humps;
other alien beasts hone in one stretch of prayer,
reminding God of the promise of Rainbow.
The prepuce of Desert reclines and
peels off, revealing the whiteness of Death....
......
Futility
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
I return from a meaningless war
After witnessing a senseless carnage.
Behind me, bows and arrows with a
Hollow quiver.
The war is over, but rages on beyond
My escaped limits, where iguanas hum
Messages across festered hills.
The war was senseless and so was I.
The cause was infantile, ruthlessly foolish.
......
Earth
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Earth,
that fine, pneumatic
piece of gem from space,
bulbous, bluish with
the hand of beauty
adorned with furry clouds,
yet in closer sense lies
senseless to internal
doom.
