Strife Poems
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.
......
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
......
The antidote
by Patrick Price
This eerie sensation coursing
My veins tightening and pulsing
An icy grasp against my throat
Searching for the true antidote
Over and over, no result
Not a single soul to consult
Suffering alone in darkness
Searching in dreams of avarice
......
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:
......
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
......
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.
......
We Dead
by Joe Cyr
(epanalepsis)
We Dead are amassed in a vortex of Hate:
Enshrined underneath Towers of Light are we dead;
Collected from the Pentagon walls were we dead;
Scorched fields mark more sacrifices by we dead;
Joined by bomb targets in Israel are we dead;
Souls from West Bank reprisals merge with we dead;
Victims of terrorism and revenge are we dead;
......
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....
......
