We Cry For PEACE
Abegunde Sunday Olaoluwa
Speaking Pen International Anthology
We Cry For Peace
By Abegunde Sunday Olaoluwa
Copyright © 2014 Abegunde Sunday Olaoluwa
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Special thanks to all poets who submitted their poems conforming to our given guidelines.
Thanks to Lennee Reid and Bayo Faris who did gave professional advice to ensure the cover design comes out good.
Thanks to the cooperativeness of the members of S.P.I.C Team who also worked tirelessly in sorting, organizing, and editing of the accepted submissions for this anthology.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to:
The Peace of Peace,
By whose grace
Peace would
Gain place in
Our lives and lands.
PROLOGUE
Here are poetic soldiers
That use the pen as missile
Weapon mightier than swords
To fight injustice and lies!
To fight anti-peace religions
With the swords of words
Inspired by The Word, our Lord
Standing against all odds
That threaten the world
In no fright of speaking right.
Abegunde Sunday Olaoluwa
Editor-in-Chief/ CEO
Speaking Pen International Concept
SWORDS OF WORDS
We create
We shape
We mould
A cosmos of star-lustred concepts with words
God-hallowed words
Sage-made words
Adam-ancient words
Sermon-mounting words
We write
We inspect
We dissect
Exposing our love-housing hearts
Exposing our world-impaired spirits
We infuse each page with words
Passion-inclined words
Birth-painful words
War-morbid words
Rainbow-garnished words
The serum, language
Flows from our veins
Words are forces
Possessing an artery
To assault or soothe
We're poets
Throughout our souls
Throughout our limbs
We feel our poems
By: Bob McNeil
WE CRY FOR PEACE
by Alowo Paul Olaniyi
From our eyes
Is the formation of dark clouds
Vision dim and all is obscure
What we catch glimpse of is thunderbolts
Rain of tears ceaselessly flow across our chin
Peace is a diadem
Just like a maiden
She needs attention
And some protection
So that procreation
Won't suffer deprivation
Nor any form of intimidation
Tranquillity is the face of peace
A ripple within causes disquiet
Trampled upon to pieces
A scion of love cajoled and smite
All for our unkempt behaviour
A mask we carry as demeanour
Let's give peace a chance
So all can delightfully dance
Rather than sarcastically prance
Around like ghost in a trance
We cry for peace in all races
Love is all we need on people's faces
What shall be the fruit of our labour
If hatred lurks within our heart toward our neighbour?
If we can cry for peace
There will be no hidden fear
Thoughts shall travel beyond hemisphere
To the fount of peace, flowing with ease
You don't have to sail to Greece
Hand in hand
Heart by heart
We shall together conquer disharmony
And form a great web to celebrate serenity
Then mortals shall toil with pleasure
Evergreen shall always be our pasture
For tranquillity is our eternal sunshine
Amusement shall ceaselessly beam from the sky!
A collaboration between Paul Alowo
and Jon Manuels Enekele
THE DEAF CALLED VIOLENCE
by Abegunde Sunday O.
Mourning in our land every crack of dawn
For news of bodies bombs broke to pieces
Violence claws grasps on our nation’s peace
Sighs for peace by masses ignored
O motherland O compatriots
Hearken to the tears of peace for rescue
Before cruelty pierce his sword
Through tender heart of peace he’d abducted
We whimper for peace
We long for nations
Free of terrorists menaces
For lack of religious tolerance
Let not our doom rejoice
For from the decibel of our voices
Is not just a high cry to our un-selfless leaders
But to God of Israel, our Father
Pray O pray
For Jerusalem’s peace
Let not the nations cease to say
It is well and better it would be
GIVE PEACE ANOTHER CHANCE
by Taslima Rahman
White pigeon the symbol of peace
Is wounded now,
Crying with low voice
With broken wing
A song has remained unsung!
Inhumane people trying to cage her
So that she can’t fly,
And can’t take the slogan of peace
One country to another country.
Power has been centralized
In some demons hand,
Want to bring down the hell
In earth,
In the wicked cycle of poverty
The peace has lost its path,
For the lack of education and food
There is no peace in neighbourhood,
I hear the long sigh of jobless
And hungry people,
Why the world overlook and
Can’t listen to the sound!
Superstition and social instability has ruined
The rest of the peace,
Peace is helpless because the
Oppression of the women, smuggling
Couldn’t be stopped,
Terrorism, drugs, slaughtering of human,
Dirty politics is determined to kill the peace,
General people are crying for peace
This is all they ever needed,
Please! Give peace another chance.
THE HAWKS
by Abdulsalam Jamiu B.
#BringBackOurGirls
From the crypt of our lonely rocks,
In bulks comes these terror hawks.
Here and there they are
Not so high
In our smiling noon sky, there they fly.
Their eyes, a gloomy glow of horror;
Pointed at our lasses
Is their crooked fingers and claws.
Right before our aghast eyes,
They clang and sunk their claws
And rouge fingers
Into the shivery shoulders of our GIRLS
Off to their bloodcurdling cave,
They hurriedly wave.
Ye ehhhh!!!
E gba wa ooo!
Abike oo Anike oooo Ashake ooo
Our daughters ooooo
Mamas deserting their wrappers
Flinging their entire body
On the surface of
the sod
With their swarthy ties
Flapping in the mud.
Papas, with a daze in their gaze
Up and down, they blankly pace
With their caps flying in the swirling wind.
Tears of blood
Rolling down our cheeks
As we bend on our knees
Holding our bleeding chest
Vomiting our wounded hearts.
Those fragile creatures are
Our future treasures
Oh! Our virgin Marias
Fastened around their waists like beads
Is the seeds of cowries;
Our dowry...
In their innocent wombs is the tube
Of the defenceless embryos
Of our future queens, emperors and kings.
Bring back our girls, bring back those jewels;
A lament song
In the tongues of our caged birds
Our Caesars,
Gather your wounded wings, fly like a raven
Into the profound of their cafe
Bring home our girls, save
For their virgin wombs is the pregnancy of our unborn future
Slavery should not be an iron beads
Fasten around the necks
Of these future creatures,
The emblems that will inherit
Our image, our literature
BOKO HARAM
An Acrostic by Abegunde Sunday Olaoluwa
Behold
Our land
Knocked
Out of her peace
How long
Are we to snivel
Ranting for action
Against these
Mad gun men?
This is a poem written in the second half of April, 2014 dedicated to the 234 girls abducted in Nigeria on 14th April, 2014 from their school by the terrors to human realm called Boko Haram, a terrorist group
NATIONAL PYTHON
A Satire by Abegunde Sunday Olaoluwa
#Bring Back Our Girls
The python,
Stole into our incubator
Took over two hundred eggs
Then crawls back to its evil cave
With those eggs in its mouth.
We beckon to the hunters'
Wholehearted chasing
Save our gems!
The python,
Noted it's been trailed
Hurriedly left its hiding-cave
For unknown bush of endless thorns
Luckily the hunter found some
Of the stolen gem eggs
No cracks?
Up hunters!
Go farther faster!
These eggs are too fragile
For merciless fangs of vipers
Mother hens, restlessly sleepless
Everyone watching so helplessly
As pain grips harmless eggs
Somebody please help
Hear their voice
O Lord
In the python's mouth
Over two hundred lives hangs
Pray they're rescued
Pray they don't get swallowed
Feel their gnashing in pain
As blood gushing their body
Some from python’s fang pierces
Some from devilish python’s tails.
I pray!
We pray!
Nigeria Pray!
Lord, hear us today!
Lord, please make a way!
Help free them from this dismay!
TRUCE
by Benson David
How I wonder
O sleeping pen...
Does ink-blood run cold?
How I ponder
At your slumber
And quill's tufts' gone stiff
Wake up!
Wake up i say!
Papyrus mourns
Duchess Muse yawns
And my poor soul... yearns
Let's put aside
Each other's wrong and pride
For we do need us
Come back!
Come back i say!
As family
Let's find solace
In each other's warmth
WHEN PEACE FLOWS LIKE A RIVER
By Ajise Vincent Olajide
Freedom shall be rampant like a brand
Truth shall lie on mortals heart band
There shall be bans on storms of hell
Cum Pestilence that with vigour swell
Nature will sing songs of happiness
For emotions to dance in gleefulness
Dreams shall see the ray of reality
And soothe hopes of all in amity
Gory menstruum will no longer be
Neither will hurt strive in glee
Lo, no! earthling will diatribe another
For indeed, love will be all banner
WHEN PEACE BECOMES A RIVER
By James Ademuyiwa
Lullabies of victory will be ours
While our eyelids wrap us overnight
Sleeping on hays of lasting calmness
As peace flow like a river at night
Normality shall grace market places
Children, sojourners; and worshipers
Shall tread paths without hearty fret
When peace be like river as our right
Corruption shall board oblivion flight
And wars become echoes of yesteryears
To revamp posterity in us, all night
When peace like a river for us flows
LOVE IS INNATE
by Amusat Usman Abiola
What if we remain muted,
With our mouth padlocked from words?
Who will sound the voice of peace?
What if we remain blind,
With eyes impaired not in sight
But in heart,
Who will cry the tears for tranquil?
Free the peace confined in thee,
Let's set ablaze rags of hate,
Let's embrace the Love innate.
Let's lit the torch of peace in hands (together),
May peace be etched in our hearts,
In its brilliant spark.
A WISH I WISH
by Segun Adebiyi
I wish these problems would end,
I wish warring tribes could be best of friends.
I wish for an end to inter-religious conflicts,
I wish we could live, ignoring religious differences.
I wish these KILLINGS would stop,
I wish CORRUPTION, would stop.
I wish our leaders can be like Abiola,
I wish they will make peace like Mandela.
I wish not to worry before doing the things I want
I wish people won't meet me to ask WHAT?
I wish to have the things I dream of, right at my finger tips
I wish I could get anything, if I just said it.
I wish parents won't worry to pay children’s fees
I wish there would forever be peace.
I wish the world could be, one united nation,
I wish for the end of Racial Discrimination.
I wish like brothers and sisters, we would love each other
I wish like lovers, we could be there for each other
I wish... Oh!
I wish!
WE ARE ONE IN THIS FIGHT
by Iyeomoan, Emmanuel Ehizogie
#BringBackOurGirls
Let the green glowing bulb
Send strange shinning sparkles
From black veins and dark hides;
Let thunderbolts send reprisals,
Lighting our way through
Bright shadows of the North
Till we unmask our fears,
Dressing
The sores we bleed
That breed on us.
MY CRAVINGS
by Iyeomoan, Emmanuel Ehizogie,
I do not crave
For mundane pom
p and power;
‘Cause in the grave,
They are as sour
As unripe grapes;
And worthless to apes
Like a banquet of flowers.
I don't save
For a pregnant 'morrow,
Whose outcomes enclave
The lasting sorrow
Of short-lived joy...
I wish to enjoy
My today's gentle toils
On rocky semi-fertile soils.
I crave to die the death
Of man in good health
With an ink's flow wealth
To change the psyche of earth:
That black is blind,
And white: better refined.
I do not rave
For worldly treasures,
And all that pleasures
A stubborn goat to early grave.
I desire love- not in gold and silver,
But in a united world- now and forever.
Let's stop racial discrimination today!
Black is gold, white is bold!
WHEN WE WERE STILL VIRGINS
by Paul Abiola Oku-ola
Fresh like the morning dew,
Stunning without hue,
Crude but not ignorant,
Active and not dormant:
...When we were still virgins,
Everyone wanted to be with us,
Friends, neighbours, suitors, superiors,
Endless was the calling,
Intense, the begging.
...When we were still virgins,
Heaven smiled and was proud;
Earth's lauds were convincingly loud.
Oh! How I wish those days aren't gone
How I wish change can devour our hearts of stone
...When we were still virgins!
TEXT TO RESURRECT REVOLUTION
by Bob McNeil
Countee Cullen
And I am of this consensus:
Prejudice drafts psychopaths.
Their warpaths
Transfix our people to many a crucifix.
There resides the reason why
My protest must never relax
From typing its attacks.
Addressed to your psyche,
My compositions are microphones for
Emmett Till, Michael Griffith,
Yusef Hawkins, Amadou Diallo,
Sean Bell, Ramarley Graham,
Trayvon Martin, Darius Simmons,