POET'S RAGE and DEAD TEMPLES (#4 of Co-authored Poems for World Poetry Day)

POET'S RAGE

Image Credit: ashlylorenzana

If my pen could sputter bullets
How I would riddle your frame
With a thousand heated words!

If I could ink, now, scalding acid,
Would I not drown your greedy throat
That your tongue may lie no more?

If only I could rhyme you death
And enjamb your stolen laughter
With spells of lingering tears!


My pen bears not Merlin's spells
Nor my ink the curse of death.
Still, I shall curse you to your grave.

My words shall steal into your souls
And be the worm that eats out
The vegetable's life from within.

I shall write, verses to make you
A blank verse, empty, dark -
A shadow that walks the day.

I'll rhyme your day into dark night
If your lips shall not swallow their lies
And your hands, return the stolen dreams.

Written by Kukogho Iruesiri Samson

DEAD TEMPLES

I.
My eyes covered the earth
As the clouds that lie flat above valleys and hills
All at once I saw men and their deeds
In worship places, along the streets
Some for me, others against my wish
My servants are trading me in the temples
Chasing earthly fame that shall soon fade
Oh! My temples turn places I can't abide in
For I am the Lord! I sit not on defiled throne
I'm not in their temples, for I, they dethrone

II.

Some do but serve me once in a week
Coming to bribe me with their offerings
After they've sucked dry their nation’s milk
Oh! My holy temple of praise
Becomes the market of lust
Where they trade sins with the basket of harvest
Are they fellowshipping or fellow -selling?
My priests have all become the sellers
Of truth for worldliness
While their brethren are buyers
Paying tithes to satisfy their consciences

III.

I'm not in there flowered homes
For they build my altar with marital malice
I'm not in their rancorous hearts
For they pump the bloods of unrighteousness
I'm not in their sordid business
For they call white, bright black
They've killed the future of the lack
Don't expect me to be in their parliament of lies
They are wise in their eyes
But foolishness rules their ways

IV.

Wake up, all you dead temples!
Take a walk of restitution
Not on the ceremony of vains
For the vain ceremony you create,
Will be your own nemesis at hereafter
Wake up, oh! Wake up!
For my cold silence
To every sinful tale
Shall herald my wraths
On the Judgment Day

Co-authored by James T. Abel Adesitimi, Adeolu Adesanya, Stanley Princewill McDaniels, and Khaleev Di Palermo