“All God’s Chillun” by Edward Kamau Braithwaite is a poem that reflects the period of Indian indentureship as labourers on the field. It also emphasizes on the Idians’ bitter experience of inferiority and racial discrimination whilst labouring on the field for the Englishman . Apart from the inferiority complex and racial discrimination, their labourious service…
Gnawing the highway’ s edges, its black mouth Hums quietly: ‘Home, come home …’ Behind its viscous breath the very word ‘growth’ Grows fungi, rot; White mottling its root. More dreaded Than canebreak, quarry ,or sun – shocked gully – bed Its horrors held Hemingway’s hero rooted To sure, clear shallows. It begins nothing….
The starved eye devours the seascape for the morsel Of a sail. The horizon threads it infinitely. Action breeds frenzy. I lie, Sailing the ribbed shadow of a palm, Afraid lest my own footprint multiply. Blowing sand thin as smoke, Bored shifts its dunes. The surf tires of its castles like a child. The salt…
your lust seeps into me it forgets that I’m your child testes muddied in their needing excruciating pain in the pursuit of the relief the path the supposed cure a boy stuck in an old man’s dress wanting for his father your lust seeps into me its scent the secretion of adolescence heart curt with…
A piece of my flesh torn away. A piece of my bone broken off. A piece of my soul remade. A piece of my thought set free . In her thin hands the lines of time grow long. In her black eyes float the truths of stone tablets. Round her slender neck a dusky hair…
Rivers and mountains beyond the form seen:Hsiang-yang’s beauty brings them in reach, and Long-View has the highest peak around.Somehow I’d never climbed its cragged heights, its rocky cliffs like walls hacked and scrapedand towering over mountains crowded near, but today, skies so bright and clear, I set out.Soon the far end of sight’s all boundless…
Cliffs that rise a thousand feetWithout a break,Lake that stretches a hundred milesWithout a wave,Sands that are white through all the year,Without a stain,Pine-tree woods, winter and summerEver-green,Streams that for ever flow and flowWithout a pause,Trees that for twenty thousand yearsYour vows have kept,You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveller’s heart,And moved his…
Oh when will autumn moon and spring flowers end?How many past events I’ve known.The east wind buffeted my room again last night,I cannot bear to remember the bright moon of the old country.The marble steps and carved balustrades must still be there,The people’s rosy cheeks are all that’s changed.How much sorrow can one man have…
Christopher Okigbo is apparently one of the Nigeria’s greatest poets. Born in 1932 in Ojoto, Eastern Nigeria, Okigbo studied Classics at the University College. He had written several poems including The Star Have Departed, Newcormer, Watermaid, Love Apart and For He Was a Shrub Among The Poplars. We have decided to title this piece as…
Coming and going these several seasons,Do stay out of the baobab tree,Follow where you please your kindred spirits If indoors is not enough for you.True, it leaks through the thatchWhen floods brim the banks,And the bats and owlsOften tear in at night through the eaves,And at harmattan, the bamboo wallsAre ready tinder for the fireThat…