Empty hands

' First, I took first '...
Mama held my hands high and swayed my report sheet like a duck gracefully glides on water

I barged into his corner but he was not there...

I stared at his portrait . His fine stub and clean shave spat his several lessons on cleanliness on my slate
My twin  tower of my pride and confidence diametrically  caved

My sophomore years were years alone
I watched men hunched by their kids
I searched right and left in hope of his blazing white collar that echoes his amiable presence.
But  Mama filled both parts.
She joggled her work shifts and the need to care for me.

Sometimes , I look out  and spoke to his absence; create his effigy:
I draw his own very frame , plant him a moustache and redress his stubs.
I wanted him to come and speak those words fathers speak to their sons.
Words that convey maps, the shape of stars and the linings of the galaxies to the ecstasy of a curious boy.

And now I became a man.
Never had the privilege of cuddling him.
Have him pat my back when I excel in my class,
Or have him cheer me up when I fall in the attempt to scale the hurdles of life...

On this very day I wanted to ask him all the questions in my heart;
He already kicked the bucket.
Tom👻

Deep

Deeper,
Sharply curved like brooding palm fronds ;
Her accent brawls high like raucous billows of a raging wind,
Poise so proper
Pain knitted behind the soul of her feet,
Life got her spines propped against the walls of gagged expression.
Her own voice she sniffed  like a dog petrified by its own bark.
She stood on the stage of solitude and rehearsed into the void...
She knelt and wept , bruised herself with  the detritus of the fallen mirror and wailed:
I am woman ; I am not the weakness of manliness.
My face ain't for your fist cuffs  to stab like like the abhorrent flashes of neon lights, nor my belly for your feisty punch,
 but my back ,your fingers to moistly tend,
my spines your arms to lift;
 and my torso your palms should nurse in strides, as a skilled brick man  lays shiny cobble stones .
Tom👻

Sepia

She veered off the rail of elegance like a cookie cartwheeled by sinister flat tubes of wantonness


She went on and on
Until,
Like a pack of virulently shuffled card in the numb numbness of the motherless night,
Her gait crumbled.....

She was the queen of my heart but the King of all my sorrows....

Tom🤕🏄🏽

Festooned

She ran her shrunken fingers across the stains on the apron of her effort ,
Like a child in a rare admiration of  dirt's glamour,
She dipped her crumpled thumb into her sooted tongue and licked the juice of grief ...
She wondered why her frantic efforts at life and enterprise  never earned his emotional comfort nor his conscientious goodwill...
Nothing has changed except hope...
It appears cloudier...
©broken verses
™Tom

COWRIES philo baba

Radiant cowries of the esteemed African pride 
What a wonder at your prudence 
As a virtuous bride 

For centuries, you were a potent economic catalyst 
Measuring the value of exotic wares on behalf of our kind ancestors 

Your skilled painting in crystal milk by nature 
Gives you a cosy look 
A symbol of peace, respect and sincerity, 
Immersed in moderation 

When haggling the cost of wares 
with the invisible hands in splenetic cum jaunty interactions. 
Mindful of the gain of each party in the raucous discourse. 
Distant from greed, extortion or economic vice apparitions. 


Your weighty size 
Emboldens your image and stand 
Amongst numerous currencies of the western world. 
Your  glistening skin and serrated button, 
encrypts the world in speechless glue at your sassy outfit 

Your inbuilt gift of mesmerising versatility in purpose 
Diversity, 
Declares you a wonderful socioeconomic device by nature to several merchants. 

You give lustre to the tunics of hunters 
And 
Exquisite antiquity to the modern day fashion 

Kids are kept at sea at your glance 
Elders pay homage to your ruggedness and durability 

The world salutes your unique frame 
Held in the palms of our agelong descents,yet, you remain the same.

You are indeed an ancient seed of awesome merchandize and ritzy fashion.

Love nwa tintin

 Her translucent eyes to my ears whisper,

tales of nimble affection
Weaving aesthetic paradise of happiness in my heart
Like the triangular draft of a spider

I see your eyes
The twinkles are brighter than the thin sparkles of the shooting stars
I wonder why my soul never ceased into them to pry

You are one of a kind
in your heart the thread of tenderness I find

With adventure your world I will roam
Till your pulse flip and pause in Rome.

Your kiss I linger for lease,
  A thousand years at least

In your eyes are hidden the constellation of stars
An end to all worrisome and dark emotional scars

My pain you heal
My soul your radiance daily steals.

Be the tender Baobab tree on which I lean
Take me to the ecstatic sphere where passions gleams.

I will love you till the ends of days,
In your embrace, I will have
my coolest stay.

I love you.               @philo baba

Poet tree

poet tree

By Oloyede Michael Taiwo

I sat on the wit of a poet tree

I read lines in pages of poetic letters in threes

On several burning notes

we agree

Poetry like a pear tree

We pick rhymes for free

Our clothed nakedness we lucidly see

The nakedness of nothingness

The nothingness of existence

Our persistence in existence

The essence of existence

The sense in existence.

I chew one tenth of sane tenses that interpret the essence of lean sentences

I bit the fruit on the poet-tree

In chapters and verses

I marked oxymoron on my speech tree

Antithesis I chew for a gift

My pulse less understood by morons

The voice of sarcasm became clarion

The axe of pain is oxy

The hook of forgiveness is moron

I sat on the trunk of pun

It lulls my bumbum with fun

I swung next to paradox

Like a good father does

Bestowing kindness that opens doors

On the poet-tree;

I and wisdom had tea

Knowledge obliged me

Understanding took me to fish

I designed this three on peachtree

I met this three

On a fair tree

On a poet’s tree

My life from the regrets of yesterday became free

On the poet-tree

Swirls the personification of poetry

@PHILO BABA