Fiendish friend

Love is written in the tablet of man’s heart

That’s why he takes his solitary lamp and trudge down the dark crooked forest paths

In search of silver and gold.

When fate anoints his journey with fortune

He chooses to be that generous king inviting

The slaves to whine and dine with him —

You smile the smile of an angel, they smile the smile of a vampire. 

Pull their skin from their body

To see the heart harbouring a double-edge dagger.

But can we tell which lizard has a bellyache since they all lie prostate?

Since all faces wear laugher,

How can we tell which laughter is artificial?

Watch them blow the gentle breeze 

And inject your tiny body like tse-tse fly,

And while bury you the pique of a thousand offences

To cuddle man with the gab of love,

Your innocent head drips blood

On the altar of raging grudges —

See why man is to his fellow, a fiendish friend.

Gratitude

Gratitude is, the smoke knowing the origin is fire,

Not amputating the hands that pulled 

The lepper out of a miry clay;

It’s the estuary returning back to the river

After caressing the seashore.

Dig up the past let’s survey the present,

How long did the feverish bird shivered on the cage

Before freedom came knocking on the door?

If now the bird frolicks and scratches the face of the sky,

Does it pay homage to earth, the bedrock of heaven?

After thousand miles of futile race;

Of planting and harvesting nothing

How did the tongue send fervent honour

To all deft hands that dragged sorrow,

Stabbed and nailed it to the cross?

When flourishing like Cedar planted

 By the flowing brook of Lebanon

Be not as foolish as egg challenging the rock to a duel.

But beat the drum of honour

To drive home song of gratitude 

To venerate all who greased your ship to sail.

Ajah Israel Chukwudi is a poet whose pen sails boisterously like a barbed arrow exhuming moral decadence and correcting the anomalies bedeviling the society.  His poetic works is a like a moving train that plies every aspect of human life. He’s a law graduate from Ebonyi state University, Abakaliki Ebonyi state, Nigeria.