Praying Mantis

Though thou art insect as
Though thou art vermin
Thy alien triangular head maketh thee look odd
Thy bulging eyes, thy swivel head maketh thee creepy

Though thy name emanates from prayer and spirituality
As thy spiked forelimbs pretend prayerfulness
But that posture is deception, a fraud for thou art
Not pious, not prophetic, not peaceful
But a calculated and cold serial assassin

Like thy cousins the termites and roaches
Thou art vile and parasitic
Thy infestation is toxic and exterminating
But unlike the roaches and termites
Thou art also a pet to some

Praying mantis in delaying tactics
Staying active and saying kaddish
Praying mantis preying in atlantis
Fearing and frantic thy victims pray God grant us
Thy ubiquity sends shivers down their spines
Thou exterminate the pests
Thou art farmers’ aides
Prospering the crops, vegetation, the ecosystem

Thy specie is an alarming 2400 and over
Though thou maketh a curious study, and
Though looking harmless, those who under-estimate
Thee do so at their own peril
Thou prey even on thy own kind
Thy mating cannibalism is shocking and despicable
Munching thy kind alive while intercoursing

Thou art still, a symbol of patience
Thy razor-sharp teeth and spiked jack-knife forelegs
Slay thy preys in an instant
With the viciousness of a marshal artist
Praying mantis, praying mantis
Preying in the mantras
I play in semantics
                                                                                                    Chuck Ibezimako © February 2020

Purposefulness

As far as the east is from the west
So far is the north from the south
What’s gonna be is gonna be
If you let it be
The vastness of the ocean abounds with splendour
The deep ocean conceals billions of creatures
Interacting in manners we will never comprehend.
Shoreless ocean, sometimes rogue waves roar fearsomeness
Torrent to current conspire to inspire with
Timeless sea breezes, for eons to blow ancient rocks
Into carved, sculpted and chiseled masterful architecture and artistry
And as evening ushers calmness, its innocence shows mercy and peace
Exposing the Creator’s love
Which wert, and art, and ever shall be!
Oh mysterious ocean
We dare to know you, yet know you not
Thou shalt remain a vast open
Space perfect for contemplation.

Inspiration! What’s that?
Be inspired if your life is meaningful
Every life is purposeful
Draw strength and fulfill your life’s purpose
For every season there’s a reason
Be kind, be useful, be good to creation
What’s worth doing is worth doing well
If you won’t do it well, don’t do it at all
Some talk a bunch but don’t mean a-much
What you do matters deeply
As you accept that your actions are meaningful
Strength and vigor becomes yours
To fulfill thine life’s purpose!

                                                                                                                            © June 2019

 

Change

Yet our world was without blemish
Yet we are not to cherish
Yet God looked down and said it was good
Yet we came and named it all, and
Yet we destroyed it all with ignominy
Yet we believe we are good as sainthood
Yet we see our world change and decay before us
Yet we blatantly deny our ill-work, that
Yet brings us ill-luck
Yet should we not change
Yet we must be changed, for
Yet change is the only thing that’s permanent!                                                                                                                                                                             -April 4, 2019

The Locust

Never again, never again.
Never again shall the progress of this
Insect be allowed into prosperity
Within the affairs of the lives we live.

Unimpressive does it look, flying with over-sized
Flapping wings, over-sized legs but smaller hands.
Alone it’s powerless but with the ideal environment
It  hatches and multiplies into billions in matter of hours.

As though seeking notation through the earth
With odd odyssey it dines like a chopper
Moves swiftly at great altitude through vast and
Distant lands and like swarms, devastate the land
Leaving desolation in their wake.

Green and lush vegetation within minutes turn
Into mere white stalks and barren land.
These beasts so immense as to cloud the sky
Their appetite so rapid and voracious.

The infestations come in quick succession
The annoying locusts chop off the leaves
The swarming locusts cut off the nodes
The creepy locusts pick up what is dropped
The stripping locusts devour the bark
Leaving white stalks  in fallow.

It’s unimaginable what
Moses wrought in ancient Egypt.
It’s awe-striking what the US experienced in 1875
Expediently let’s expel these
Agents of destabilization
And apostles of backwardness
Before they hatch anew!

Egg of Fortune

One two three and before
You know it’s ten female children
Begot of her in pursuit of a male child and
Instead of glory her’s is gory.

Rebecca has gone this far
To appease the gung farts;
She could lose her husband
Should another beget him a male.
They say it’s tradition and
I say it’s attrition.

Her eggs are fertile
But her labour is futile. They say
Females don’t matter but the
Matter is females are the world’s fortune.

They swear their tradition to be sacrosanct
But forget that Nneka (mother is supreme).
Their lips are as loose as a goose
But believe they’re as smooth as a snooze.

Zero don’t play the hero and
Abel won’t be able
To be a judge over us.
Forward ever backward never!

Papa’s Goatskin Bag

One tap two taps my young shoulders felt
” Get up, get up,” papa’s hoarse voice whispers.
Half awaken half adreaming and faintly my name I hear.
I was eight and it was 3:00AM.
“Get my bag, we must go now;” papa commanded!

Walking the darkness of the night through the haunted narrow winding road
Misty leaves of roadside bushes slap left to right rendering us damp.
Passing the village public latrine and graveyard terrain,
Across my left shoulder to my waist hung the bag, and beside him,
Papa expounded stories of a beautiful bride named “wisdom!”
The bag is custodian of life-essentials: herbs, roots, barks, blades, concoctions,
Wine gourd-cups, oil, snuff, kola nuts, bitter kola, alligator pepper, handkerchief.
Tough, impenetrable and odourless goatskin this bag be,
Perfectly twined goat-hides its strap be,
Oversized rusty buckle its lock be,
Papa’s goatskin bag.

Unknown then was electricity, kerosene-lamps lit us, firewood our meals cooked.
Barefeet we trod, scooping along dusty sands and risking all.
Deadly hissing snakes and chirping crickets silence as we
Approach to reproach. The quietness more frightening and bone-chilling than the night.
It’s odd time for human perambulation.
Louder got the chirping and more vicious the hissing, clearly protesting:
‘Tis our time, humans!

‘Twas elders emergency meeting, summoned by the town crier.
Discussion is held hundred percent in proverbs and idioms
Otherwise taboo be it.
No business has a simply-minded in this gathering
Eternal frustration and shame to the elders unversed
To proverbs and idioms.
One third of the men, their kids they bring
To groom and to bequeath the
Secret of the goatskin bag.

Forty-four men in perfect circle on their individual 1ft. wooden stool sat,
Welcomed by ten clay jars of soured palm-wine and bowls of kola placed in their centre.
Mazi  Efulefu, archer and porter, stone-faced and looking blankly inscrutable,
Clearing his throat, addressed the kindred:
“He who brings kola brings life; what the elder sees while seating on the ground,
A child cannot see even when standing on top of a mountain.”
Intent listening, easily bemused, hard understanding and forever I retain
Their rambled discussions that lasted but half hour, and
In reckless abandon did all speeches idiomatically centre on
Subjection, supposition and subjugation, born out of
Oppression, depression and suppression.
But why? the kids must evolve into
Papa’s goatskin bag!