What is Poverty?

Poetry

Is there anything like poverty?
is it POVERTY when a man is healthy
but not wealthy? read more

What is Poverty?

poetry Is there anything like poverty?
is it POVERTY when a man is healthy
but not wealthy?
Is it POVERTY when a man is wealthy
but not healthy?
Is it POVERTY when a man is a rich-illiterate
but a poor-literate?
Is it POVERTY when a man has many children
but there is no money to take care of them?
Is it POVERTY when a man is rich
but has no child?
What you call POVERTY might be RICHES
to the other man.
Are there not out there financially
rich barren women
who are craving for children?
Are there not out there
financially muscled people
who do not have peace?
Are there not out there people
who are handicapped
but have handwork?
What seems as POVERTY to you
might be RICHES to the other man.
Is the success of man
determined by how successful
he is financially?
In life, man lags one thing or another
no matter how highly placed.
So, there is no RICH man, no POOR man.
What abound are gluttonous-insatiable persons
or you call them, kleptomaniacs.

Odimegwu Onwumere
is a Poet/Author, Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), Rivers State, Nigeria. Mobile: +2348032552855. Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com 　

Under the Baobao Tree

by Archie bonka

Under the baobao tree, this huge tree

thinking my own thoughts,

suddenly there come this stranger

along this dull water logged plains.

Under the baobao tree, this huge tree

i offer him my last kola nut

we hold each other looking and staring

smiles on our faces

Villagers rush to see the new stranger

they stare at him, smiles fall on their faces.

Under the baobao tree, this huge tree

weighing the level of our hospitality

our dear stranger introduce his religion
with curiosity to learn, we embrace it.

losing touch with our own religion,

then comes destruction

of our civic society.

Under the baobao tree, this huge tree

the stranger does not stop there

he starts to divide my people

by inciting hatreds among us

he creates wars

which lead to our enslavement

oh, he shackles us, takes us
to unknown foreign lands.

Under the baobao tree, this huge tree

we are sad but life must go on
so we must fight for our freedom.

After this shameful act of slavery

he does not stop there

for he brings another agenda.

Under the baobao tree, this huge tree

this stranger divides our families, our nations,

creating misery among us - again.

we have come a long way:

cold war, dictatorship, military coups,

democrazy and globalization a new order
we have come a long way.

Under the baobao tree, this huge tree

bit by bit the house fly eat dog wounds

once again sitting under the baobao tree

reflecting upon my thoughts

about my first encounter with this stranger

this alien who has come to stay

Under the baobao tree, this huge tree....

FEAR (A Poem)

By Bonka Archie

People go through phases of life, wanting to be phenom
Chasing, grasping the wind and building emotions as crafty
As a fox with soak brain, waiting to be drained and shouting
Out to the voices from afar, multiple times but it wasn't fun.

Being helpless, I need to call 911 but no way. They can't control this fear.
Going through this diary of life and flipping through pages
Of changes, not knowing the position of the contents.
Oh!fear, oh!fear, oh!fear, this fear

Its like a razor blade that cuts through you and there is a place
In there where only few people can find their strength back.
That is through their pain, blind folded with their fury and just making
Reality like a punching bag.
Oh! fear, oh! fear, oh! fear, this fear.

There is only one life to live and many roads to follow
Whilst the wind has no bounds , no colours and no limits
Just taste the smell and follow the vane.
Are you lost in time? No, wake up! Time is our most valued asset
Get more plunder, but no more time. Get out and rise above this fear
Oh! fear, oh! fear, oh! fear, this fear.

Bonka Archie sends this poem from Budapest, Hungary

They Make me Hate my Type

By Hakeem Babalola

They gave me their religion to suppress mine. Theirs I must worship, mine I must derogate. Everything about me is considered inferior. I am too black, I do not have pointed nose, I speak in vernacular, I wear Ibo made. They kill me, they murder my form. Look at my sister. She’d rather die than leave her identity - her hair - authentic. With the help of my forefathers, they plant inferiority complex in my psyche, and it’s smoothly pass on to my child. I am gradually annihilating my type. read more

Joyful tears in my pupil eyes

As My Pupils Graduate
Upon time their innocence so easily seen
They allow mama/papa dress & undress them
No red in their face when aunt bath them
But now girl or boy pals blush them so quick-

Years pass they circle round me to know
They allow me blow their nose
They crawl around me for more
As they tease and hate and love me-

Then they were not even as tall as a dwarf
Now they bend down to collect their reward
Experience and knowledge and nature
Nap those little devil angels from me-

I remember their tricks:
When they drain energy out of me
When they mock me aliases
When they make me weep-

Thence I think I’m less qualified
To empower them survival
In this jungle round city
Where strong pummel the weak

They make me mad – almost
My pupils, baddest and brightest
My pupils, wild and wise
My pupils, meek and might

I endure their incorrigible habits
I endure their youthful exuberance
I survive their pranks
I survive their laziness

Today my face wreathed in smiles
As they walk towards me:
“Thanks for being a teacher
Thanks for empathy and patience.”

A time for fellow feeling?
So my pupils have grown up!
To know the toil of a teacher &
Show remorse getting on my nerves-

Today as they graduate,
Their success my gain and joy
Joy without fear or guilt or regret
A reward of poor dedicated fellow

Hakeem Babalola 2006 copyright



Joyful tears in my pupil innocent eyes

Here comes night of innocent eyes
To sing the song we sang together
In presence of both parents
To reward the toil of a teacher

The world have known about my pupils
How brilliant and smart they become
To sing the song we sang together
Their voices the world to hear

In joy they wink their innocent eyes
As sparkle as diamond to the world stage
When the clap I hear glow my beating heart
Until their mouth refused to talk

So my heart starts to ache
So I begin to sweat
So I stumble
So I jump on the stage

My pupils start to weep
So I say: Weep
So they weep
And they weep

Shout, so they shout
Laugh, so they laugh
Clap, so they clap
Kick, so they kick

And so parents sing along
And so the world sing along
And so they become brilliant and smart
As we sing the song we sang together



What my pupils say of me
Teacher,
Be patient or madness become you
We can make you crawl like a toddler
Cause we know more than imagine.
Adult,
Like us but pretending otherwise
Oh,
Come swear before our innocence
If genuine enough as depicts.
See,
Your paper we care not
But the human in you
And we respond according.
Ah,
Come swear before us
If like us you never were
Aren’t we your mirror?
So,
You see you not in us?
How gone soon your memory
To know the picture of you.


Because Dem Say I Be Bank Robber

Me Africaness a crime in their eyes
Me Nigerianess a crook in their eyes
Cause I smart pass them in their own game?
They who enchant I with whiteness
Turning I into zombie functionally illiterate
Me forefather more harm they did him
When they forced him build their land
They rob his wealth and humaness
To buckle down his children children
But me dignity I must keep
Hence I enslave me soul
They make I guilty of me image
Dispower I from I and from I
They who define who I should be
But when I start to free meself
They remind I of me past
How it was they that empower I
Otherwise in darkness I waste
Though I believe not their thought
Humn… I’m I still not a victim?
Today their land I run for me bread
Today me father still borrow from them
Sure help shall I get to bondage I – again
When I start to know, me father they rebuke
Him not doing proper job on I
Help… me inheritance to seek
Else hunger become I – forever
And when I enlighten me father
About whiteman’s trick
Me papa disown I:
Oyinbo never go wrong!
Me father, victim himself
Is addicted to hooking help
The more I resist Oyinbo’s trick
The more they trick I
Then Oyinbo return half me forefather’s wealth
Deceive me father to feed I good education
Off they entice I to their land – again
Not like slave but like king’s servant
To drain me clan – again
Now I know –
Whiteman don’t like beggar
But beggar they want I to be
To remain what they want I to be:
Beggar, bank robber & laughing stock

When Shall This Bride Become?
Tomorrow,
When they are gone
All of them-
Those brain death rapists
Those hook worms
Arrow and spear hole their head
Tomorrow,
When they return
All of them-
Those impotent drain brains
Those mountain goats
Crown and cowtail honour their head
Tomorrow,
When we are no more
Destroyers and Builders
Fountainheads and falseheads
Must iron it out
Tomorrow,
When worms and goats
All of us-
All of them-
Deconstruct bobo match-maker’s aim
And truly
Shall this bride become