Friday 26 September 2014

The Election of Abubakar Shekau

Following the death of AbubakarShekau
We hereby cause to be elected, AbubakarShekau
In the rusted hands of The International Community
Observers of our extinct African humanity

For we have not known how to live
Even though unto humanity a lot we did give
We do not have any more religion
Save for those who grab moneys to see us visions

Now it is Election Day, and we've got no options…
On the queue, we see no one who's got the gumption
Our nostrils perceive the electioneering promises
From the aromas of charred huts and roasted human beings

But we all love the great AbubakarShekau
Who lived and died for me and you
We loved the scowl that eternally sat on his sad brow
As he delivered his presidential speeches on YouTube

AbubakarShekau's invisible posters are everywhere
He uploaded them on the wild wild web which we all share
He promises unlimited good life in the hereafter
And thereafter his assignment is to send us there

And this new Shekau, is he brash enough to fill the shoes?
Does he have scorn and treachery enough for two?
Does he watch satellite TV and ask you not to?
Does he rape virgins here and promise heaven for you?

It doesn't matter whatever he thinks
Or what volume of alcohol he drinks
It won't matter that Shekau performs no ablution
Shekau will tell us what to do with the barrel and the bomb

Darkness is creeping in and the accreditation is almost done
It doesn't matter how we vote, this election is lost and won
It will be the freest and fairest and most credible one
Not a shot fired, no polling agent brandishing a gun

Tonight will be the most jubilant in our beds
With brilliant fireworks in our dreams, hope in our heads
That someday some-ass atop a rock shall give us some bread

Before he tells us we are living, even if we are dead

Odoh Diego Okenyodo is a Nigerian writer, activist poet, journalist, public relations and advertising practitioner. He is the Country Director of Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation in Nigeria.

Monday 8 September 2014

Monday 16 June 2014

POETRY PACIFIC: 2 Poems by Ram Krishna Singh

POETRY PACIFIC: 2 Poems by Ram Krishna Singh: BODY The body is precious a vehicle for awakening treat it with care, said Buddha I love its stillness beauty and sanctity here and ...

Tuesday 8 April 2014

I AM NO JESUS AND OTHER SELECTED POEMS, TANKA AND HAIKU

I wish to share with friends  my new collection of poems, I AM NO JESUS AND OTHER SELECTED POEMS, TANKA AND HAIKU, published from Romania. The book may be viewed/read on:

http://issuu.com/kirim-tatar-kitaplari/docs/i_am_no_jesus

It is also available from amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Am-No-Jesus-other-se...and+other+poems

--R.K.Singh

WAVERING SHADOW

WAVERING SHADOW

Thursday 20 March 2014

ANGEL MICHAEL

seeking shelter
under the golden wings
of Angel Michael
a prayer away now
whispers the moon in cloud
 
 
--R.K.Singh

Monday 20 January 2014

POET OF THE MONTH

Pablo Neruda
Enlarge Picture

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the town of Temuco, remarried doña Trinidad Candia Malverde. The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he also got to know Gabriela Mistral, head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking to him. At the early age of thirteen he began to contribute some articles to the daily "La Mañana", among them, Entusiasmo y Perseverancia - his first publication - and his first poem. In 1920, he became a contributor to the literary journal "Selva Austral" under the pen name of Pablo Neruda, which he adopted in memory of the Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). Some of the poems Neruda wrote at that time are to be found in his first published book: Crepusculario (1923). The following year saw the publication of Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada, one of his best-known and most translated works. Alongside his literary activities, Neruda studied French and pedagogy at the University of Chile in Santiago.

Between 1927 and 1935, the government put him in charge of a number of honorary consulships, which took him to Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. His poetic production during that difficult period included, among other works, the collection of esoteric surrealistic poems, Residencia en la tierra (1933), which marked his literary breakthrough.

The Spanish Civil War and the murder of García Lorca, whom Neruda knew, affected him strongly and made him join the Republican movement, first in Spain, and later in France, where he started working on his collection of poems España en el Corazón (1937). The same year he returned to his native country, to which he had been recalled, and his poetry during the following period was characterised by an orientation towards political and social matters. España en el Corazón had a great impact by virtue of its being printed in the middle of the front during the civil war.

In 1939, Neruda was appointed consul for the Spanish emigration, residing in Paris, and, shortly afterwards, Consul General in Mexico, where he rewrote his Canto General de Chile, transforming it into an epic poem about the whole South American continent, its nature, its people and its historical destiny. This work, entitled Canto General, was published in Mexico 1950, and also underground in Chile. It consists of approximately 250 poems brought together into fifteen literary cycles and constitutes the central part of Neruda's production. Shortly after its publication, Canto General was translated into some ten languages. Nearly all these poems were created in a difficult situation, when Neruda was living abroad.

In 1943, Neruda returned to Chile, and in 1945 he was elected senator of the Republic, also joining the Communist Party of Chile. Due to his protests against President González Videla's repressive policy against striking miners in 1947, he had to live underground in his own country for two years until he managed to leave in 1949. After living in different European countries he returned home in 1952. A great deal of what he published during that period bears the stamp of his political activities; one example is Las Uvas y el Viento (1954), which can be regarded as the diary of Neruda's exile. In Odas elementales (1954- 1959) his message is expanded into a more extensive description of the world, where the objects of the hymns - things, events and relations - are duly presented in alphabetic form.

Neruda's production is exceptionally extensive. For example, his Obras Completas, constantly republished, comprised 459 pages in 1951; in 1962 the number of pages was 1,925, and in 1968 it amounted to 3,237, in two volumes. Among his works of the last few years can be mentioned Cien sonetos de amor (1959), which includes poems dedicated to his wife Matilde Urrutia, Memorial de Isla Negra, a poetic work of an autobiographic character in five volumes, published on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Arte de pajáros (1966), La Barcarola (1967), the play Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta (1967), Las manos del día (1968), Fin del mundo (1969), Las piedras del cielo (1970), and La espada encendida.




Always by Pablo Neruda
I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth
to start our life!

Friday 3 January 2014

Pyrokinection: A Poem by R.K. Singh

Pyrokinection: A Poem by R.K. Singh: Golden Reward   With sudden twists and turns popping up each new day life still awaits intrigues through meandering pathways I ...