The Servitude Called NYSC

In submission I yielded to the clarion call,

You clothed me in drills and labour

The rigour akin to the harsh whip of our slave masters.

Soldiers, camp commandant, platoon officers

All made me weep in regret.

I was issued a meal ticket

Malnourished from food with sparse ingredients

Food meant for prisoners on death row

Perhaps, even, bad enough to wake the dead.

My settlement was a beehive of activities;

Filled with people; teaching, smoking and lounging.

I took solace in the body of village girls

Randomly occupying the honeypot between their legs.

What a pity !

I also sought satisfaction in the bosoms of local girls.

As I agonized that I wasted my time and energy on meaningless tasks,

Like birds beating their wings,

Against the bars of a cage, in a struggle for freedom.

In the end, I was greeted with a paper;

My name was stamped boldly on it

It resembled a certificate

Which signified my freedom

From the chains of modern slavery.

I took it with mixed feelings

Danced away my sorrows into the winds

Filled with happiness, freedom and prospects.

Even the musicians dropped their instruments

To applaud.

By Adetayo Omotoyosi Adeolu
 omotoyorsiiadeolu@gmail.com

The Lonely Man

My heart is made of shattered glasses
In which I drenched my loneliness
Ready to cut you in pieces
With the rage of celibacy

Sometimes my shadow
Becomes my only companion
In it, I see myself clearly
Hanging on to the wallow

I once watched at a glance
In my dream, I poured a libation
Swimming across the ocean
And gathering pawn at dawn

Sometimes I don't know
If I should blame Maa'mi
Or blame Baa'mi
That I am alone
Like bank notes in a vault

I met a Miss
She blew me a kiss
But I took the drug of sorrow
And hid in the sands of time

Love is a drug
Sold by those whose hearts are made of stones, 
ready to break my heart made of glasses
Traded on the stock of loneliness

Maa'mi says time will heal me
She told a beautiful lie
The type pitted cities against each other
As the clock stopped ticking

Maa'mi told me to live freely
Like a rich man's offspring
Because soon and very soon
God shall be without a faith

But the world dies abruptly
And with it, my melancholy.

By Adetayo Omotoyosi Adeolu
 omotoyorsiiadeolu@gmail.com

A Good Day To Die

Last week,
I drew a map in my head
In it lies a geography of cooked acrimony


Here I am,
Standing like a Tripod stand;
Body dredged in pieces of mind and soul
Like Ileya ram.


My soul wanders in the evil forest
In search of my mind;
Leaving my memory behind
Like a river that forgets its source.
In the sea of trees


I buried the map in my head
Pruning my hair
And distorting my life for weeks.
I became blind


And held on to the river
Like a life saving jacket
The river failed me


My life is a shred of rotten papers
My success were penned on these papers
But cast into the ocean
Begging for mercy in the layering waves.


And in the end,
I gave my clothes to a tailor
Whose best clothes were rags.



By Adetayo Omotoyosi Adeolu
 omotoyorsiiadeolu@gmail.com

It Is Good To Rejoice With Children

When the sky falls
we shall hold it
in our pockets;
and wrap it as a gift
to our lineage.

This world,
shall forever sing the song
of victory even with its
tongue slashed
and its heart squashed.

The world played a
game of mockery with
my parents,

employing the fruitless 

to watch over them

The calabash of fruitlessness
was shattered by the words
which my parents buried in the air.

With the echo of fruitfulness I arrived.

My parents danced with the stars in the air;
in a show well attended by my ancestors.

By Adetayo Omotoyosi Adeolu

 

Walk With The Impoverished Geriatric.

.....show love to the aged around you.....

When we walk lightly into their life

They will feel the world change

When we hold them 

Their hearts will be awakened

We love them, 

Our hands become their staff

Our voices become their guide

Our strength becomes their shelter

Our passion, their awakening

We will walk lightly into their life

and all their pains will be gone

We take them as our own

and all their fears we cast out into the sea

It matters not if we choose to stay or go

Their lives are forever changed just because we loved them for a moment in time

By Chiagoziem Bonfilus Offor