By Abdulsamad Jimoh.
The Running Day
My heart beats as the seconds tick.
Inchmeal, I’m getting avid and old.
I look at the running day,
neither I nor my docket is its focus.
I garner my zillion thoughts,
my dinky head envelops all.
Whenever I look up to the sky,
my zeal grows like my beard.
My wants, in short time, I want to capture,
or at least before I lose a day.
But, here I am, I have prevaricated,
waiting for another day…
I thought I could clench the time to sate myself.
I thought I could journey to the past to start afresh.
But, here I am, I have prevaricated…
I look at the running day,
and cannot catch the time.
Another day comes, the light whispers to my ears.
I look at the running day,
and realise it’s counting me…
The day it stops, my eyes will close.
Beneath my feet my heart tumbles,
realising my breath will be arrested one day,
and I’ve been frolicking under murkiness.
Now, I can see clearly.
My myriad of wants cannot come in the short time.
My day of quietus may be the next.
But, till my blood turns still,
I shall kill my day with something.
I Adore the Poets
I adore the poets,
for they marry words
to build a world.
Amidst their breath,
the throb of their hearts,
and the blink of their eyes,
I glimpse the charm of facts
that never appear to dry.
I look at the nature. Yes I look!
They look at same and write a book.
The mind they have
they see as a plus…
Mine isn’t a half,
perhaps with a gloss…
Flowing together in the same aura of freedom,
I’d submerged my soul in the ocean of wisdom
to journey with my mind,
faraway, to find distinct kind…
That, at the end or at last,
my knowledge would become vast.
The Preacher Man
I hark back to some past years…
To the years of my blackness and nescience:
To the time when I sank in extravagance,
And got stinky satisfaction without fear.
Before the preacher man came with the homily
That turned my heart pious and holy.
I hark back to the time,
When I conflated my blood with sins,
And told myself it wasn’t a crime,
For I believed I didn’t risk other beings.
But the preacher man came with the light
That showed the way for my short sight.
I want to be like the preacher man.
I want to preach the words of God.
So that rotten deeds will run wan,
When people turn to follow the words.
Life is Mystical
Life is frail, like a strand of cobweb,
yet we live at risk every day,
oblivious of our expiry date.
Searching for money and sustenance
in every corner and crevice,
with no inkling of the upshot.
The scenes of events tardily unveil;
nobody knows what’s ahead.
Yesterday is gone,
and gone forever.
Today is active but will soon conk.
And tomorrow is yet to be born.
Able-bodied men!
Being in full today is a privilege.
Seize the plus in an efficacious fashion,
for tomorrow may sing new song.
A man, not fated for
heavenly grace the next day,
grandiloquently prognosticates himself
animated for another
twenty years—a bleak and superficial imagination.
Life is mystical—a perplexing natural construct
that can only be defined by the Uncreated Creator.
—Photo by Liggraphy via Pixabay