Quivering alone in the murk,

Letting out pain in warm drips,

While making to deliberate

Whether to live or wither.

The throes of that distant night

Melts into the wind's grim howl.

Palpitating with terror,

The weak's soul drifts into mess.

Faint echoes from forced struggles,

Like daggers, pierce through one's core, 

Impairing the mind to dregs,

Eroding the soul of worth.

Prudently conserved maidenhead

Made relinquished by some vain brute.

Memories of an ill hour

Would soil that one's whole lifetime.

But another, on that, reflects

And grins with dry accomplishment.

Say, would, if thou were them, revel

At the sight of a soiled white?

___

(Originally published by Spillwords.)

tell it on the hills and peaks / what has made the crackers crack the night / what has caused the birds to chirp a tune / what has chiselled a smile up our faces

up till four hours and two the other night / it reeked of burning / of tempests and of / darker shades of red and grey which / when perceived are triggers of dripping clouds / the air we breathed did have a lot of wonders

the air we breathed did flow within a frame so great / so great that we soon forgot our consciousness / as we flitted about horizons bathed in blue and . . . and red / the frame exuded a mass so "Hitler-ry" / so "chameleonic"/ so "Idi Amin"

and it wasn't long before we uncovered / a heap of the reaper's souvenir / bony hubs and grails of crimson streams / all adorning the frame that always trapped our air

at the fullness of time came a quaky bolt / soon all is hush / and calm / and green

four hours and two soon passed by / and we would turn humans again / very beings made for pops and smiles / rather than a lifetime of groans and shivers / even as we join the birds in their rare chirping chorus.

___

_______

(Originally published by UpWrite Mag.)

________

Fell in some unconscious revel

With all my senses quite feeble.

But I was roused up to discover

That some virus paused the world. 

T'will fade away in no time—

Just some vainly uttered oracle.

For months passed in a while,

And weeks just drifted by.

I looked and observed through my lens;

The world was shrouded in silence.

And my ears were keenly opened

To eerie cries and theories spread.

Natural cause or terrorism,

Some leaked weapon or whatever tis,

Our world since breeds some raging panic

As death slowly invades our fabric.

I, regardless of these, a gauntlet throw

To you who has stilled and quaked our realm

The' nduring strengths of ours o'er time tested

Will prevail though our last bechanced by woe

Then this time I'll soar than a copter

With all my senses brewed with fervour

I will rise to joyfully divulge

How our bleeding world quenched a scourge

—Written by Elisha Oluyemi

(Originally published by Nnoko Stories.)