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Ibrahim Bangura is from Freetown. He completed his studies at Fourah Bay College in 2004, with a major in History and a minor in Political Science. |
In the heat of the sun
When rain knows no stop
In the midst of trepidations and tribulations
Like a lioness looking for a lost cub
The Searching Searcher searches on.
Knowing no peace
Knowing no tranquility
Knowing no friend
With mind on fire
The Searching Searcher searches on.
Where is love?
Where is joy?
Where is happiness?
To find them he must.
The Searching Searcher searches on.
Let me
be.
I stand whole.
all I gave, none I received.
My heart went, a hole came.
Love is deaf
Love is dumb
I learnt, I will implement
That imp, that fiendish imp.
Let me be
I will survive
The hole will be covered
I will forever hear now
I will forever talk now
That imp, that fiendish imp.
An aeon of time wasted
From books to guns.
From guns to book
An agglutination of both at times
H.E. This wants
H.E. That wants
H.E. None gets
H.E The guns become
Analogous politicians
Analogous soldiers
That ambit none transcends
My nation in crisis.
In a National Crisis my
country is
No future for us.
No schools, no fun.
My Country in National Crisis.
With thoughts of sugar-coated houses
Of beds made of bread
Of rooftops made of ginger nuts
Of streets tarred with ice cream
Of taps that produce juice
Tony boy thinks of that land.
That land beyond the seas.
That un-get-at-able land.
The father a moron
The mother helpless
Ah! Tony boy the dreamer of the land beyond the seas.
"Till me," the land cries
"Rebuild me," the houses shout.
Ah! Tony boy hallucinates.
Permanently yours
The Imaginative Imaginer
Blind to the world
Felt like feeling the Unknown.
I'm the cause, the effect drawer.
She entered, all unknown
The Seductive Seducer.
Temporarily yours
The burns, the toils, the pangs of love
Blind to women
Started feeling the Unknown
Like Judas she went
Like Christ I was nailed.
I have seen the Unknown.
I have felt the Unknown.
Let
the hands of yesterday go.
Let it go mama.
How can you hold on to yesterday
When you have today and tomorrow?
You bleed, weep and wail
You burn like hell
Naked and in ruin thou art.
Forgiveness seems impossible
Forget is unthinkable.
The rivers cry
The mountains bleed
For the kids went mad.
Today the dust is settling.
Forgiveness is summoned.
Etched into your brain
Fresh in your mind
Memories of pain and trials are
For you I feel, for I know.
The unvarnished
truth can never be known
For my brothers now play reticence.
The cardinal sin has been committed.
The fundamental mistake has been made.
What kind of a fool my brothers are?
I still don't know.
How can one rape his mother?
How can one kill his sister?
How can one burn his children?
Ah! I carry a pervasive and debilitating fear -
For this our generation is a different one.
We lost what we should hold dear.
Mama I plead,
leave the past alone.
History will be on your side.
Their yesterday will be their tomorrow.
They shall not know night nor day.
They will burn and they will cry.
Your unspoken pains and enforced cry
Shall their wages turn.
In the path of destiny we
meet,
Your rocky and merciless face
Like Medusa has turned by pocket stone.
Who created you?
My maker will not for him I know.
Because of you
marriages scatter.
By your will fathers get no respect.
For how can one control when
He lacks the weapon of control.
You thief, you stole that weapon.
You bring age
faster
You draw death nearer
The young scorn you
The old hate you
Your name is cursed.
Like a locust entering a
barn
You enter lives and render it empty.
Ah! This incomprehensible thing.
Managers even kids are now
For one can never be sure of tomorrow.
Poverty,
this to you should never be joyful.
For every person covered goes with a part of you.
The last man will go with the last of you.
No winner no loser.
Poverty dead all mankind dead.
Bruised and battered
Like the wreckage of Rome
The land I entered seem.
No milk no honey
Till and toil and turn we must
No smiles, no humour.
Fathers hard
Mothers helpless
At all cost ends must meet.
Streaming the Rokel Road
The moguls pass with broad cars
And beautiful smiles.
I must strive
I must succeed
I must be my own man.
No friend, all foes
The cherub annihilator strikes again
Like the angel of death himself
Appalled like a widow
Reading loved one's epitaph I stand.
Alas a friend I see
The friend that bars the mighty wind.
My blanket
My Eskimo blanket
An insomniac charged to a drugged sleep.
Ah! My friend
To you I must pay obeisance
Against the wind I am rancoured.
I cling to you to sleep more.
On the sixth day
The Striking Strikers advanced
The putsch not contained
"Oh my God"
The pumelling pumellers pumelled us
Under the cacophony of gunshots
Our aegis fled
Alone I stand, naked and empty.
An obstreperous city
That pulsated into a battle zone
The strongest survive
The weakest perish
The pumeller pumelled on.
Bare I stand with my hand raised.
Almost six feet tall
Like a star twinkling at night
You lighted a candle in me.
A cornucopia of beauty
A man's mesmerizer
My baby, my prodigy.
With imaginations of me
Driving through that velvety softness
My mind lingers on to sleep.
A monomaniac of my Queen
My Nubian Queen
My baby. My Goddess.
My heart every pico second stops
With thoughts of her lips, her eyes, her mouth.
My Goddess, My Queen, My Nubian heart.
My Nuremberg or my
Hague.
This trial of love has
My ebullient and fearless proposal dwindled.
Will I ever see? I doubt.
I am tumbling down the
road of life
My pride truncated by the cherub's truncheon.
Like a madman I curse my star
Which the fragrant breeze of misfortune has turned downwards.
Hate
her, hate her.
A fiend she is to humanity.
Refuse effemination my brother
My mind advises me.
How can I hate
When I have only love.
How can I term fiendish
The only thing I love.
Eclectic you are.
Magnificent brilliance propel
The aesthetics of nature and nature's God.
Can we ever be.
Like
a magnet it draws the heart.
It blossoms like the Victoria Park.
And its products go far beyond
For such is true love.
It is made up of beauty
and joy,
Happiness, friendship and celebrations.
It gives no heed to sorrow, pain or tribulation.
It holds no grudge, malice or hate.
The true
source of earthly joy is love.
Children must have every bit of it.
For only when you know love
Will you be able to give it.
With love we take
hope
Where there has only been despair.
We build bridges where
There has only been gulfs.
With love we kill
hate
We destroy agony and despair.
We make God's work easier
When the true time reaches.
So soft and tender thou art
Full of energy and as bright as a full moon.
Thinking thyself a super-woman
Thou grabs the world.
The Casanovas wait to welcome thee.
Ears deaf, eyes blind you give in.
Into Disney World you get
For no one like you will be.
Like a vixen after
the heat period
You would be left
With an award of deficiency.
A customer of the male kind.
Pride lost, dignity lost.
Strike a catch or time catches you.
I stand averred from
my very self.
The gulf widening
My heart palpitating
What went wrong? I wondered.
My offered nosegay crushed
My mind in an oubliette
My head like a tornado turns.
Ah! My mistress has turned bad.
Like a mad lion,
I wandered lost in thought.
I circled my neighbourhood
Forgetting my home.
Ah! Only time will heal me
For now my heart is sick.