June 10, 2017

Three Poems by Ngozi Olivia Osuoha: "If You Were a Pensioner," "Conquered and defeated," and "Cup of Bitterness"

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha is a Nigerian poet. A graduate of Estate Management with experience in Banking and Broadcasting. She has published poetry in the UK, US, Ghana, Liberia, India, Zimbabwe, Canada, Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago, Germany among others. She is a passionate writer, thinker, rhymer, poet.







If you Were a Pensioner

If you were a pensioner
Would you prefer the past:
The days your children went to school hungry
The weeks they walked miles on feet
In old raggy uniforms,
The years they dropped out of school
The times they were sent home,
The examinations they missed and took all over
Because of fees?
If you were a pensioner
Would you sign off your arrears?

If you were a pensioner
Would you praise the past:
Those months salaries were unpaid, delayed
When you borrowed all from all
When your enthusiasm almost cost your life,
If you were a pensioner
Would you sign off your arrears?

If you were a pensioner
Would you rather not be at peace,
Would you not have been at rest,
Would you not have utilized your gratuities,
Would you have signed off your arrears?
If you were a pensioner
Would you have fallen sick without money and care?

If you were a pensioner
Would you have worshiped the powers that be
Or adored the government that ruined you?
If you were a pensioner
Would you have cursed the integrity you maintained?
Were those years of selfless patriotism regrettable?
If you were a pensioner
Was trusting your fatherland a nightmarish betrayal?
Would you have signed off your arrears?

(Previously published in Raven Cage Zine, Germany)




Conquered and Defeated

Swords of vengeance in humming caskets
Fanning their blades of death,
Vultures and serpents
Punching their adversities,
Monsters and mermaids
Pounding their adversaries.

Cohorts of witches in their covens
Bees of bondage in huge romance
Advancing troops of lust
Shuffling legions of hate,
Galleries of passion, clustering
Bands of zeal thundering, begin!

Home of skulls, caves of skeletons
Mission for peace, mission in pieces
Fathers of agony, seeds of disharmony
Brothers of rage, battles of siege
Defeated in victory, victory for defeat
Conquered and vanquished, victor unhappy.

(Previously published in Radom Poem Tree, Trinidad and Tobago)




Cup of Bitterness 

In the frailty of our frame
Hides the vanity of our fame,
And the fogs that freeze our freedom
Instead of saluting our stardom,
Yet a feature on the future of our fixture
Beyond the sanity and our shame.

The muse of the fuse we refuse
Bends and sends the echoes we lend
Because the fine wine we line
At the edge of the village
Stands tall behind the wall of our fall.

Though the bitter letters glitter
Far from the honey that ruins our money
Together they boil and foil and spoil
Like the digger that daggers when we gather
And steps up the cup of bitterness.

So like fishes we frolic
Trying to fence our defence
Like a flock, we block
Wanting to patch and hatch
Yet that cup overflows
With hate, violence and war.

(Previously published in Radom Poem Tree, Trinidad and Tobago)



© Ngozi Olivia Osuoha



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