Three Poems by Abdulmueed Balogun

 

Covered

Where are we to go from here

with our immature dreams? 

Swinging to-and-fro around the neck of aspiration 

and with our minds, frail like spider's web, 

yet to mature into the fullness of a grown man, what are we to conjure?

Who will be there to stay with us 

with our worries ginormous as a blue whale

and our minds wallowing in tumult like a disconcerted home, who will tame?

Which road will hope tread to 

come find us and lynch forlorn —

the new sun in the sky of our minds, who will dim its shine? 

from which pore will the feeling of wretchedness 

ooze out  among the multiple pores on our sullen skin?

I long heard that answers are huge mysteries covered in 

array of uncertainties and that only time can unveil the road leading to their demystifications.

Daylight 

Their cries — orphans

groping under the root of darkness

pining for light of liberation 

to scream like someone who sees a ghost in daylight.

Dear God, will their cries ever vanish like spiraling smoke?

Their pain — victims of war

wallowing in the shadow of sorrow, yearning for peace rebirth like the sun from the lips of dawn.

Dear God, will peace ever spank out pain like a tyrant out of their hearts? 

Their hope —  

pauper dining with squalid fleas, 

feeding on remnants at dumpsite.

Dear God, will their hope of a better tomorrow ever 

come to life unannounced  like a lightning? 

Herald

Who then shall wipe our tears,

when days become hellish —

having spikes as wind and thorns 

as rain,

who then shall stampede to our aids?

Who shall teach us how to forget the 

past —  the turbulent-filled past, whose

scars keep marring every blissful moment — of present times,

who then shall teach us

the divine art of healing ?

Who shall pick — bliss-sucking ticks from our minds, 

when forlorn devours every grain of mustered hope, 

who then shall weave asylum from the thatch of our sorrow? 

Who shall dare to sing the song of 

peace, when we sail and slither 

in the vortex ship of life.

Who then shall sail in the ship of 

peace to emancipate us from what seems like age of unending torment? 

We can't know and shouldn't be perturbed, for days and nights to 

herald are springs of uncertainties. 

____

Abdulmueed Balogun is currently an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. He was a runner up in the ‘Reform Naija’ writers contest - "Freewill" in November, 2020. His poems have been published / are forthcoming in different online publications and anthologies including: Headline Poetry, The Quills, W-Poesis, New Horizon, among others.