Three Poems

By Ehizogie Iyeomoan 

Wednesday, 17 June 2015.

tonics of a madman

on his head
stood stranded strings of hairs
minced in monochrome hue

those stranded hairs are
adjectives of an unkempt life
gazing at the exclamation of vanity
with her neighbouring mysteries

he spoke in mene-tekels
the mind of the gods
spoke he, to no one in particular

he smokes words into the air
in sines and tethers
like a baseless old car stereo
playing high-life music in the 60s

in hysterics, he laughs
as his end notes magnet eerie eyes.
he prides in his product,
feeling fly like a newly unveiled celeb

soon, he gets aroused
by ear-teasing sounds
belching from distant local talking-drums

Like the branches of a palm tree
he swings his body in all directions,
dancing, dancing, dancing,
till the beats fade out.

colourless things

in your movies,
you paint polished pictures
to make me believe
angels are as white as your snow
as stainless as stars of your skies

you make me believe
you are without faults
just like the angels on your TV screens
maybe you are right
for i am yet to see one

again,
you fiddle with my thoughts
when a demon shows up in the camera
for a place in the cinemas.

you clothe him with black robes
riddle his face with facial marks
seen only on the face of a black brother

but each time you dribble me
you dribble yourself too
‘cause if a fruit falls down from a tree
it only loses its birthright. not its name.
or will you call a fallen fruit a stone?

so if angels were white
before they lost the glory of gravity
they still would be white

and if they were black
before they fell down demons
of the belching earth,
black shall they always be

so stop dribbling my mind.
celestials are colourless!

wet dreams

the rains poured, the night went cold
needing a winter coat for her breast
a fire place for her flaking feet
a blanket for her borrowed body.
but these were beyond reach

she opened the river
robbed the pointed stars on her standing moons
against my hairy chest
poked the rat hiding under my knickers
till it stood up
dived into the river, with no life jacket on
swam its breadth as i lost my breath

the magical touch of her fingers
heated congealed tubules
as iced blood in my veins melted
the river broke her banks, her fast
as my rat spat a starchy puddle. and died!

in the dark she lit me a stick of cigarette
poured more gin into my begging glass
pulled the trigger with more strokes from her fingers
as my stubborn rat again stood still
above dark fences of stranded grasses
for a third term in office
like a power drunk public servant

i dived in again, swam like a swan
till the river went dry
no more streams of starchy puddles
for i stood no chance of re-election

so she rolled the roller coaster off her frame
and like a dead log of wood, it fell by the wayside
on the other side of reality
for this was only a dream!

Ehizogie Iyeomoan is a multi-award winning poet and graduate of Economics and Statistics of the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria.