Henry Akuete: My Poems and some

  In the tunnel, darkness falls upon me My soul is held down by a dark anchor cold and cloudy hands cover my sight Silence is all that encapsulates me Broken and fallen I bleed alone As I learn the meaning of life What little freedom I had I call with nostalgia For in falling is the lesson of mortality My lips sing a pale silent song And my breath mutters a familiar prayer In the dark tunnel where I lay alone the rooster and hour hand become old Pain oh pain why liveth thou? When nobler kind find none but death In the dark you find strength to curse me to call wailing and gnashing of teeth In the tunnel, cold and broken I know it is for a time and moment For hope is my pillow and my ghostly blanket When the rain is unfriendly amidst thunder I may be down in the dark tunnel But light is faint at the tunnel's end Aye..faint but light ever still Shinning with a veiled and steady shimmer Ye I know though slowly I crawl I will reach that end whe

If you read this note then I must be gone Hanging from the leaking roof of my one-room home the rope was painful but all I could afford For I had no money to buy a suicide drug I tried, I tried God knows I tried But if I'm not tired then I must have lied All my life all I knew was pain Hunger and tears with satan to blame So it goes with me that I went to school Arduous and tough but I kept my cool Stumbled and stood through all the strikes Took me eight years for a course of five Long last I'm out with a paper degree Hoping to share in the federal alawee I served naija in the sun and rain In the north I was mobbed another corper was slain Its five years on still have no job My girl left me; no money no love The rent is out and I'll sure be thrown out Life in the city's for the rich with clout How can I cope when I can't buy a job Or a note from a senator for a job with the law I strived I toiled but it seems I'm

  Dear wife of tomorrow’s bright day You may have met me now or meet me tomorrow might be another man’s woman today but surely mine tomorrow for time he borrowed life is short and death still longer so I take a pause to write you a letter so when you see me you know the man in me ask not mundane questions of boring routine for this is the man you see and the one you get I have been with a list of women in my time done the lot and seen much more but that doesn’t change the man I am forget the rumours and the lies they spread for I was just searching for you in my own way you may not believe words I speak to you now for to you I am just one among many other men who come to preach and lie just to lay with you but I will still say what I must for time is short I’m not the kind that would call you 12 times a day I’m not the man that would be with you all day I’m not the man that would follow you to the salon I’m not the man

Among lesser men are gods Aye though few yet remain Through the glass I cast gaze across time and age to see yet how many ever were and are With their name in the eternal wind I listen and gander into the solid light A single loud name flies from a few Silent and loud in my frail drums Chinua, chinua, and yea I nod A thespian god of line and poetry But Lo I heard in the wind in the night Chinua's godly gold quill is fallen His corporeal quill his mortal hand He has passed over the silver seas Into the land of my forebears past Ferried by Charon for no coin While others pay in silver and gold Chinua my father lo tho I see him Sitting at table with Homer and them Drinking in verse the philosopher's mead With Ken Saro Wiwa an immortal alike Aye Chinua'a quill be fallen and yet his hand But he remains still alive in time Breathing to bear from the paper scrolls My son and my son's son will one day hear And sing a poetic song for prai

Oh cupid,take this humble offering of tears and sorrow I bring To your ethereal alter on high And heed ye my mortal supplications Born from lonely and cold summer nights out of the misty depths do I cry A poor soul I am yearning for a sigh of love Pull ye out a fiery arrow from your quiver Filled with the coveted seed of love And with it take aim at my mortal heart Piercing it with the sweet immortal venom of gods That I may have love and feel the ecstasy Long felt by the lofty occupants of olympus On this day cute cupid Send the one that will take me to immortality for love remains eternal hereafter When flesh erodes to lie waste a mortal I know mine is out there though I see it not Touch my heart and let be gone the pain of loneliness Strike me and light the fire long come from the flight of your kin prometheus Find me love and keep me alive For death is all left for the lonely and loveless....

On I walk a lonely pilgrim Through life's road dark and cold Been on this long journey a while Since I woke from an unknown slumber On a quest for what I do not know I search with compulsive imperative Through murky and misty quagmires I meet the good, bad and deadly Where it leads I can not say Through many turns I lost my north I once was a young man when I walked Now the dust of age cover my skin I saw vanity come my way Yesterday when I took a queer turn Today I saw the stain of sin On my cloak when I sat to rest Call me lost if you know the way Through this gruesome wilderness Point the lonely finger down the road Where four points collide to confuse me For on I must persevere to proceed As my bones despair in a single place The road keeps me from the pits of insanity The road is all that I live for The pilgrim road where my mortal existence finds along a convoluted and paradoxical definition If they ask where I am someday Tell them I am still on