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