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Prodigal Flood Waters of Life: Poems by Dela Bobobee

flood waters
Image: Andy B via Flickr

The Sky is Alight with Hope

In the heat of our darkest moments
Our doubts do mirror sad comments
No cheering words assuage our fears
Our eyes do fill with unalloyed tears
Our smiles wan and hearts grow faint
Our eyes shut to colours the sky paint
With radiance of hope the sky is alight
If we now open them again all is alright!

The storm is over because we believed
From God’s throne our drives received
Hovering dark clouds may beget grief
But the people’s hearts do crave relief
From the dirges of the heartless gloom
That stifles growth of buds that bloom
Our hopes pierced the eye of the storm
Our hopes pierced the eye of the storm.

============

First Flight

Along the smooth tarmac marks
my red drum taxied the runway
in frenzied palpitation of initiation
as the reluctant huge bird spurted
unbelievable lifting force of gravity
reversed vertigo into the clear blue sky
fresh mounds and tower lights dimmed

Sailing five thousand feet high
among fluffy cotton fields of clouds
set ablaze by the glowing setting sun
ignited in me blissful Icarus exhilaration
before the dying sun’s saturation point
behind the smiling clouds lurked threats
of frowning dark boulders on our path

Jagged flashes of lightning hissed
at us from the whirling turbulence
the flying coffin lurched and dodged
potholes and gullies of the sky
calls of the Sultan and Bimbo in tempest
unto one God on the Deutschland
or is it that they cried for the crown then?

The blooming shortest way home
may not always be the quickest route
for short journeys do last for eternity
but man’s will had smothered the fall
and set free my imprisoned infinity
from the dungeons of trepidation
Icarus wings of wrought lion hackles
had waned my fistful first fright
naivety fled on my very first flight
and yoked uncertainties with light.

============

Prodigal Flood Waters of Life

When our pasts inundate the present
and endlessly chart new chaotic trails
that we in travail must daily traverse
the future remains a greedy landlord
in the grim abode of tireless oscillation
where human error is sordidly set afloat
in life’s ceaseless prodigal floodwaters
where we flounder like  its vile flotsam

but when our  aged present is focused
and is in tandem with our will to seek
blurred spoors left in our hasty quests
serene rivulets of sanity in retrospect
we shall break the ring of the ludicrous
clear daft debris of doubts left behind
set our crooked  old records straight
and make history become a beginning
by becoming one with nature in conquest.

============

The Beginning of the End

What happens to our beginning
when the end sets in abruptly
like a page torn from a novel
that tells our unfinished story
in hushed tones shrouded in
silly self pity of anachronism?

will our end be just like a dream
of a cold sun that sets at dawn
to depict a fossil  past in rubrics
that was tainted and traumatized
or beget new beginnings in an end
like the old phoenix from the dust
purged in crucible of conscience?

when the dust settles from hunts
and we look around us with hope
poverty is a state of the mind
we shall mend our leaking barns
nurse no real or imaginary wounds
for our bleeding hearts will soon clot
and our last shall becomes the first.

============

To My Old Scars

When I survey all these wizened scars
that now litter and speckle my body
like laurels on  a war veteran’s  battle dress
I shudder at those dangerous games
that childhood had played on me to romp
the jungle half naked and barefoot
the streams with deep swirling whorls
the tropical sun with its ultraviolent rays
the mosquito infested swamps I tramped
the careless trod  on vipers with lethal fangs

now I tremble at those childish foolhardiness
of which I climbed many tall coconut, mango trees
of the many ugly falls with broken limbs and tears
of the  many rivers that could have swallowed me
at venomous snakes that could have bitten me
at malaria that could have snuffed life out of me
I thank God for pardoning my childish exuberance

but if I had passed through life without a scar
would I cartwheel through life without a pain?
would l learn dire lessons that teach not twice?
would I discover hidden paths to the sublime?
would I see the disparity in wounds without scars?
would I have sweet memories to muse over  in old age?
would I know the extent of God’s love and protection?
would I stock the relics of dying embers of sleeping fires-
when the darkness settles in and senility closes in?
when the visions of earthly things slowly grow dim?
when childhood memories would take all pains away?
when at last death hums its lullaby to lure me to sleep?
when my heavy eyes would forever close on all absurdity?

———————–

© Dela Bobobee

Image: Andy B

Dela Bobobee
Dela Bobobee
Dela Bobobee was born in Aveyime-Battor, in the Volta Region of Ghana. He was educated in Ghana and Nigeria. He holds a B.A (Hons) degree in English, and a Masters of International Law and Diplomacy (MILD) degree, both from the University of Lagos. He is a published playwright, poet, short-story writer, and also an actor who had most of his literary works published on the internet and in the "SHUTTLE", a campus literary journal while still in the University of Lagos. He has won several prizes and awards for his literary works. Dela Bobobee is regarded in most circles as an environmentalist poet as most of his thematic preoccupations are on environmental degradation, and very vehement in calling on the industrialized nations to ratify and implement the Kyoto Accord. He plays the guitar, piano and tenor sax. He sees multilingualism as a very great asset, be it African or foreign languages. He is also very enthusiastic in learning foreign languages such as French, Spanish and German languages. Dela Bobobee is also into professional video production, directing, scriptwriting, and video editing. His video production is mostly directed towards wildlife preservation, animal documentary, and very passionate about the preservation and promotion of the rich African cultural diversity. He is currently working hard to produce his first feature film about the "Trokosi" vestal virgins syndrome in Ghana.

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