Wee hours of the morning, I writhe as I write
My soul is tortured, and I'm drawing blanks
There is something here in the deepest of night
Will my muse appear, if I drop and give thanks?

Black shadow of perspective, hidden from me
I know you lurk there in the back
I stand on tip-toe, trying to see
Looking through a small jagged crack

I hear whispers of presence, I know you are there
There is horror in this unsleeping room
The empty halls don't lead anywhere
I stumble, flail away to my doom

I held back waters, raging sea
for days, building inside me
words of contempment
spewed from your lips
weakened my resources

Days of sandbagging
building leveys
protect you from my wrath
gave way to alcohol
touching my lips

Now sea bursted
leaving no stone unturn
your city lay bare
eyes of those watching on
hoped I would just shut up

Tone down outrage?
soften blows to your ego?, but
what about my integrity
trampled down
left mangled

The oracle predicted, not long ago
That an unusual change will come
To the great house of Akwa Owo
When a minor will be made a king
We found it hard to accept as true
Due to convoluted conditional ties
And unfeasible demands of the gods

The struggle for the crown came hard
Between the three big clannish lords
Who felt it was their bequest to rule
From southern seas to desert north
Leaving the vassals to find their holes
A hindrance of some sort, thus created
For the aspiring ethnic minorities

White down
so high
and yet so lowly, soft,
your flecks of light
where brown turf darkens
damp,

so innocently growing
'spite the weather,
torn clouds,
against the blue or grey,

beside you green of moss
stone, heather,
grasses, hay,

not lauded
given honours like the rose
but there the mountain knows
your sweet repose.

Imagination.

It's all about God (the roving bandit she is)
playing with all the missing pieces, stealing all the
best lines never written
and blowing scene after scene with a wintery breath
the first night of her refusal in her deep purple phase,
the moonglow her pale-skinned backdrop.

You hope the one you're with
is true, but
know it's just delusions.
give benefits of doubt, but
is often wrong

Rug you stand on
steps rely on
fallen ladder from roof top
leave you stranded
on dry rotted shingles

Home of hopes, dreams
cherished memorable fruits
faded love on dead stems
sit idle in stained vase
no longer haven for marriage vows

Nest is empty
birds, damaged feathers
return home, tattered
weathering the storm
of life tragic lessons

let's feed our love dripping
to the mother and watch the
soft kisses
dribble down her
chin

paint her diner napkin
as coffee silhouettes embracing on lipstick
smudges under
a coy hand
hiding

folds of paper pushing against
pulling into plying apart pressing upon
each other
sticking with their
wetness

to her lips smiling corner
lay the shadow or a sweetness
wiped away
by the imaginative
creases

Steam from an engine is rising
masking a frothy dark umber.
Cream colored foam hangs upon it.
Crusting and dripping it changes.
Muscle in movement formations
shaping on cold winter mornings.
Exercise done, I untack him.

I can think of no subject more mundane than my job. Parse this sucker please.

Above the road
caught in a gust of wind
a butterfly.

A gold front came through in the dark
and sprinkled poplar leaves behind
autumn's first mild fleeting lark
the next one will not be so kind

But on this day beneath warm sun
there's yellow scattered all around
along the road and old creek run
high in the trees and on the ground

Fall pasture's gilt with bitter weed
a carpet fringed with emerald grass
'ere long the blooms will turn to seed
when the first frost comes to pass