Anchorman (COAL)

Message from a Painting - Oluwatosin Olabode

Oluwatosin Olabode is a Speaker, blogger and writer. Simplicity and Humility are his core values. He's a Christian,  an idealist, a futurist and considers himself a shy guy. Oluwatosi Olabode was one of the five lucky winners of the 'A date with poetry' competition.

Message from a Painting 

I thought I was thinking
Then I realized
My feelings weren't what I was feeling
Because I felt the thought
Didn't think I could feel
The expression I had seen.

She was a painting- stable...
The things she said in her silence
Were beyond the understanding of words spoken
The gentleness on her face was speaking
Yes, talking to me

‘Understand the hurt
And the pain I face
When people can't look
Beyond my face
And see the true me'.
Only when you look deeper
Deeper indeed
Will the expression be understood

I saw pains
As she looks at me
It was explained
In the gentleness of her face
In the silence of her lips

It was more like she wanted to say more
But the words could not come together
The expression on her face said so
In that simple but complex moment

It was like this
Exactly as she said it:
‘Wait... don't tell me
I'm almost here...
The words are about to come out'

The honesty of her spirit
The purity of her spirit
Could be seen at that very first glance
But she was just a painting
So she needed me to talk

Her point being
‘Don't just stare at me,
Understand me'

Untitled By Rachel Msendoo Kaase

Msendoo Rachel Kaase is a young writer from Benue state. She was one of the five lucky winners of the 'A date with poetry' competition.

I grew up slow, she grew up way too fast.
She got the Queen Amina role to play,
And I had enough “Yes my Queen” statements to say.
I tried not being jealous,
Putting my mind on being academically zealous.

She wore make-up and dated guys who did regular press ups.
I had of these none,
I secretly knew I was going to turn up a nun,
But this didn't come to pass
I watch myself turn into a simple, ordinary lass,
While she was a belle dinning with the Upper Class.

I was at her bedside after the operation
I don’t want to call it abortion,
Well I just did, she uprooted the seed.
For some days she was depressed
I wanted her to stay that way but nah after days,
She had her depression suppressed.

Back to her carefree life she went,
Soon she returned home again with a gent
She called him her Heaven-sent.
It was no wonder when they exchanged marriage vows
Sweetly said and received loud “wows!”
Off to Spain they traveled, sending pics to me to marvel.

I soon became an aunt.
This triggered my husband hunt, I returned hurt.
And she was there in my state, I was wondering what she was doing here
Her hands clasped on mine,
Her eyes looked into mine,
And her eyes said to mine, “in this entire world, there is no heart for me like thine.”

The day I would have lost my mother - Jennifer Dafwat.

Note: To download the audio recording of this poem delivered beautifully by the magnificent Jennifer Dafwat... http://picosong.com/2saR

The day I would have lost my mother
Began as all others
Unseeming, uneventful
Except for those prayers whispered
For all I know
For those I love
All so naive about the rest water the day held
But on all it poured
Extinguishing lives
Drenching wills,
softening hearts
Hardening others
This ode too long to tell

The feeling hit me
Like spikes to the heart
As life from blood flowed
Epitomes of costly arrays
Flayed off carcasses
Off beauties and tans
Making all so sweet
So revolting.

The day I would have
Had me saying I haven't
Thought of worn out spirits
Snatched all too soon
In moments faster than batting eyelids
Placed lids over pots we'll never drink off
Eyelids bat
Opening only to the nocturnal
Activities we of this flesh will for now
not partake in
Pain listless
A blankness in my head and heart
I know not what to call.

Days after
The carnage is still a lingering taste
on everything we touch
Everything we open ourselves to
Everywhere we set our feet for
Streets once alive with cat calls
Sellers wooing buyers
Buyers courting sellers
"Wanting to" buyers
Passing by
Biased or prejudiced
From it all
Sprang the pit fall
That pitched all
Against forces that take much…

Standing at this autumnal column
Looking at what lies ahead
Seeing more of what laid past
Brazen streets now ashen
Inactivity
Thoughts,
dead ghosts,
Now living the activities of this city center
Once a place of constant movements
Twice hit with fatal blows
Somewhere in my mind; I try to picture
If men and women
Will give to buying and
Selling of wares
On streets that are
Streets that were?

When I would have lost my mother

Happened one Monday
Somewhere between afternoon and mid-evening
Disrupting midday Pukam of the Mangus
Calling Ngas from her Forri
Jarawas from their Tere
Berom from plates of Gwote
Challa from mouth watery bubal
Tarok from enjoying Amora
As Plateau caved in
Making space for graves
That sounding of the afternoon gong
that tells of doom
Calling all
To a matter to dire
To wait
As we turned to the twist of fate
That called our loved ones to early beds
Beds hard and cold
The harsh reality of mortal beings.

A DATE WITH POETRY

A DATE WITH POETRY VOL 1

COMES UP THIS SATURDAY 7TH MARCH 2015

FEATURING:        Decipher-  JOGAMA award winning Poet

                         Anchorman- Runner up 2012 ALS National Poetry Slam 

                         Grandsun, Rudolph, Leon, DNA and all COAL Ambassadors. 

Also for the first time, four new poets who scale through COAL's online competition shares the stage with COAL Ambassadors.

MUSIC:           Seken

                          Gold 

                          Mfon

 

                   

VENUE: 

Vintage Art Gallery, Jos.

TIME: 3pm

TICKETS: FREE

BE ON TIME

COAL-   PRESERVING LITERATURE

NIGHT EJACULATIONS

The grave silence in this ocean of sheets,

Found me in the belly of them,

Twitches of solitude

Itches of morning

Whispers of dark rays

Covers of night.

While the clock ticks

My hair they pick.

Sagging the bags beneath my eyes

As tears dribble down my spine.

Crunches of misery, wavering of time

Sisters of night, lovers of dark

Grant me this plea

For just, a minute slumber, I, desire.

It is 1 am, 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, still no blink.

Names from many tribes and ages given

Sick, insomnia, depression, insanity, illusion, hypnosis

Witcraft, magic, lost, Satanism.

Still, no, sleep,

They are no strangers, not friends

But between the leaves

We fly on a plane quiet and lonely,

I see them, they see me,

We, all, lost in time, lost in us.

It is 1 am, 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, still, no, blink

We were never friends nor foes,

Never hate nor love,

We were ourselves,

Finding solace in this void,

They called and I answered

I fall, they wait for my rising

Like a rasin they cut me before my due date

And I find reason on the bench of their aura

I kiss them with dwindling eyes

Yet we never ejaculate in pleasure land

They stare while I count the white cubes above

tearing my eyes wide,

Tearing pages, scribbling words,

Screening visions and watching my nightmare,

For it is 1 am, 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, still no blink

We were never friends nor foes,

Never hate nor love,

They were me as I was them

Slowly striding the path to light,

Kissing the past on the lips of today.

Munching possibilities with teeth of uncertainties

They are here again

Striding pass my window,

I see them, they see me

Unlocking my soul

To their seduction

Caressing their tender breasts

As they stroke my mind.

Ecstasy of night,

Sweetness of morning

Illness of Noon,

We were never friends nor foes,

We were little creatures,

Finding our path on the misty desert of our bare lives

It is 1 am, 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, still no sleep.

written by Andrew Patience (AP)

DIAPERS OF LOVE

Its 3am in the morning and my waist feels like its empty yet full of needles, Joan is crying again, I look into her eyes and I remember. The 3 weeks I had been as moody as a tortoise and just as slow. Lara my friend jokingly said she thinks I have lost my virginity, oh she had no idea I had lost more than that, although I smiled nervously and told her she was as crazy as the mad woman that always stayed at the junction saying gibberish nonsense.

         

The inception has been tied to a dark prince, Tunji has this dark handsomeness that just tempts you into doing all those things only ladies who have worn white do. It was a rainy night and he could leave my room but I convinced myself that the rain was too heavy and he won't get an okada that stormy night, we both had plans of creating our own Storm right here in my purple abode, "Pearl I cannot sleep here, as soon as the rain stops even if it's by 11pm I will go home."  I laughed and told him I knew he wanted to stay. I prepared indomie and tea as all I wanted to eat that evening were his kisses. NEPA must have known what was up that night because the light was so dull, ‘low current’ as we call it. My girly room suddenly looked like a garden, I felt drunk as I kept thinking if I should make the first move, my mom's stern face kept crawling into my inner eyes and I kicked it to the back of my neck, at least there are no eyes there. I set the Indomie on the reading table, we ate in silence but the night was soon  going to be filled with sounds, I wondered what it was going to be like, 'my first time'. I banished my mom, my dad, my pastors, aunts, Lara, everyone who expected me to know rights from wrong were banished from my thoughts. I have decided, I’m going to embrace all the glides, sucking, moaning and all they ever told me rings a woman's bell.
   

He left the next morning and I could not even look at him, I pretended I was asleep while I kept praying he’d leave my room and life. Fear was the first call I received in the morning and the last person to check if I was tucked into bed at night was old lonely fear. Fear led me to take a pregnancy test, I read almost every website online talking about pregnancy symptoms. I think the sperms are playing around with my eggs already, I calculated my cycle, hallelujah I’m save, I thought as I waited. Then I cursed that day....the nurse looked at me with gossip in her eyes, “how old are you? Stupid girl you are pregnant". I cried my eyes out as I knew I will keep my baby. Grenades explored in my head, it was not easy as friends turned fiends, I disappointed my parents, everyone who had faith in me thought I chose a bad fate, damn I know I chose a bad fate but I made a good decision to keep a life time souvenir that I too have joined the league of persons who knew right but choose left. I’m ready to do right all over again, I insist on success, it has become a must I make it a constant companion.    Now I think, and I’m grateful for the love of Joan, though I was kicked out of my father's house, I landed in a land of cries and diapers, most of all love....

                                                                                           written by Lola Onigbinde