Infelix
Where is the promise of my years; Once written on my brow? Ere errors, agonies and fears Brought with them all that speaks in tears, Ere I had sunk beneath my peers; Where sleeps that promise now? Naught lingers to redeem those hours, Still, still to memory sweet! The flowers that bloomed in sunny […]
Hemlock Furrows
I O crownless soul of Ishmael! Uplifting and unfolding the white tent of dreams against the sunless base of eternity! Looking up through thy dumb desolation for white hands to reach out over the shadows, downward, from the golden bastions of God’s eternal Citadel! Praying for Love to unloose the blushing bindings of his […]
Genius
“Where’er there’s a life to be kindled by love, Wherever a soul to inspire, Strike this key-note of God that trembles above Night’s silver-tongued voices of fire.” Genius is power. The power that grasps in the universe, that dives out beyond space, and grapples with the starry worlds of heaven. If genius achieves nothing, […]
Fragment
“Oh! I am sick of what I am. Of all Which I in life can ever hope to be. Angels of light be pitiful to me.” The cold chain of life presseth heavily on me tonight. The thundering pace of thought is curbed, and, like a fiery steed, dasheth against the gloomy walls of […]
Dying
I Leave me; oh! leave me, Lest I find this low earth sweeter than the skies. Leave me lest I deem Faith’s white bosom bared to the betraying arms of Death. Hush your fond voice, lest it shut out the angel trumpet-call! See my o’erwearied feet bleed for rest. Loose the clinging and the […]
Dreams Beauty
Visions of Beauty, of Light, and of Love, Born in the soul of a Dream, Lost, like the phantom-bird under the dove, When she flies over a stream- Come ye through portals where angel wings droop, Moved by the heaven of sleep? Or, are ye mockeries, crazing a soul, Doomed with its waking to […]
Depths
I Lost-lost-lost! To me, for ever, the seat near the blood of the feast. To me, for ever, the station near the Throne of Love! To me, for ever, the Kingdom of Heaven-and I the least. Oh, the least in love- The least in joy- The least in life- The least in death- The […]
Battle Stars
Alone on the hill of storms The voice of the wind shrieks through the mountain. The torrent rushes down the rocks. Red are hundred streams of the light-covered paths of the dead. Shield me in from the storm, I that am a daughter of the stars, and wear the purple and gold of bards, […]
Aspiration
Poor, impious Soul! that fixes its high hopes In the dim distance, on a throne of clouds, And from the morning’s mist would make the ropes To draw it up amid acclaim of crowds- Beware! That soaring path is lined with shrouds; And he who braves it, though of sturdy breath, May meet, half […]
Answer Me
I In from the night. The storm is lifting his black arms up to the sky. Friend of my heart, who so gently marks out the lifetrack for me, draw near to-night; Forget the wailing of the low-voiced wind: Shut out the moanings of the freezing, and the starving, and the dying, and bend […]
Adelina Patti
Thou Pleiad of the lyric world Where Pasta, Garcia shone, Come back with thy sweet voice again, And gem the starry zone. Though faded, still the vision sees The loveliest child of night, The fairest of the Pleiades, Its glory and its light. How fell with music from thy tongue The picture which it […]
The Nuclear Ghost Towns
The Nuclear Ghost Towns by Adeola Ikuomola The moon is a spark on decency Swashed in colourful eloquence With live pollen, petal and sepal Mourning with a weeping dawn The moon is a spark on greenery Like virgin rains on the rainbows Baking emeralds for embryology To cleanse the stain […]
The Conditional
Say tomorrow doesn’t come. Say the moon becomes an icy pit. Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified. Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire. Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks. Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain. Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter. Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse. Say we never get to see […]
The Ugly Little Bird
The Ugly Little Bird by Admiral Mahic Someone has pulled me out of the grass Because I had fallen From a black branch. O sweet! O wild! The cats are evil here! O am an ugly little bird – with my soft beak I keep pecking at the running […]
Not A Star
Not a Star by Adonis Neither a star, nor a prophet’s inspiration, nor a face praying to the moon, is Mihyar. Here he comes like a pagan spear, invading the land of letters, bleeding and raising to the sun his bleeding. Here he is, wearing the nakedness of stone […]
Mountain Wellhead
Mountain Wellhead by Admiral Mahic This is where God breathes! Here is the mountain wellhead that cannot believe our bodies are drenched in darkness. Drops of water burning bright like verses from holy books. Here my heart smiles at Goethe’s heart, like a sun at a sun when they meet in […]
Lightning In The Dark Night Skies
Lightning in the Dark Night Skies by Adeola Ikuomola The blue blooded, blue babies of the skies The chief commanders of the blue moons Blue boxing the dark cloud to blue berries From the blue on blue to deep blue stages The calls of the void on the throne for […]
In The Bus That Is Frantically Rushing From Cairo To Port Said
In The Bus That is Frantically Rushing from Cairo to Port Said by Admiral Mahic I could have gotten married in Egypt With one sun ray, That is masterfully openinig gates of fields in front of the bus that is frantically rushing from Cairo to Port Said … Beside me, the […]
Immoral Laboratories
Immoral Laboratories by Adeola Ikuomola Here are columns of fleeing masquerades The old members of immoral laboratories Upon atomic mushrooms’ sulphuric acids Darkness blackens the dazzling complexes Like perplexing unforeseen circumstances In viral antisocial and immoral behemoths Keeping procreation in immoral drainages Like colossal bumps on maritime advances […]
Hope
Hope by Adebanjo Olamilekan Olamide I don’t know what other mortals may choose but give me hope or throw me into the torrents of hell. Where all concepts in this allegorical world fail Hope stays alive waiting for a call to pick up If hopes weren’t free, rich men won’t […]
Hope And Riders
Hope and Riders by Adebanjo Olamilekan Olamide I don’t know what other mortals may choose but give me hope or throw me into the torrents of hell. Where all concepts in this allegorical world fail Hope stays alive waiting for a call to pick up If hopes weren’t free, rich […]
Do I
Do I by Adetokunbo Hussain Do I disappoint you? Perhaps because of my words or maybe it’s the lack of it? Do I disappoint you? By what I did or do? or perhaps what I didn’t? Am I the one you want me to be? Am I your type […]
Communal War
Communal War by Adeola Ikuomola Hellish! Complicated Bitter and vitriolic Contempt and anger! The slippery words Beaded with bleeding gums In the chalets of the bloodiest lips Bear hostilities and military campaigns. Darkness stands Mourning the demise Of the genetically terminal light On chariots of thunders to obscurity! […]
Blank Dreams
Blank Dreams by Adebanjo Olamilekan Olamide To terminate words is that all must dream, the many by nighttime. Nights that are turning points ushering us into dreams The history of ourselves tells us of an image of the immediate future meant to rip our hearts as what we fear in […]
Before
No shoes and a glossy red helmet, I rode on the back of my dad’s Harley at seven years old. Before the divorce. Before the new apartment. Before the new marriage. Before the apple tree. Before the ceramics in the garbage. Before the dog’s chain. Before the koi were all eaten by the crane. Before […]
Again
sunrise this painted lady i cannot take my eyes off & by noon i am drunk on her perfume clutching this wild bouquet between my teeth stumbling up the aisle of spring as if this all wasn’t new not at all concerned with my reputation California’s Lost Coast […]
A Voice
A voice by Adonis Mihyar is a face betrayed by its lovers. Mihyar is bells without chinning Mihyar is inscribed upon the faces, a song which visits us secretly on white, exiled roads. Mihyar is bells of wanderers in this Galilean land. Songs of Mihyar the […]
A Toast To Nations
A Toast To Nations by Admiral Mahic Nations and nationalities, you are not chocolate, you are the sweetest Jam cooked from bitter labour! You are the original egg, the supreme cause of war and peace! You are the homeland of the rising sun and moon. You are the cameras recording from […]
What Of The Night
To you, who look below, Where little candles glow – Who listen in a narrow street, Confused with noise of passing feet – To you ’tis wild and dark; No light, no guide, no ark, For travellers lost on moor and lea, And ship-wrecked mariners at sea. But they who stand apart, With hushed […]
Vows
Nay, ask me not. I would not dare pretend To constant passion and a life-long trust. They will desert thee, if indeed they must. How can we guess what Destiny will send- Smiles of fair fortune, or black storms to rend What even now is shaken by a gust? The fire will burn, or […]
To Morrow
The lighthouse shines across the sea; The homing fieldfares sing for glee: “Behold the shore!” Alas for shattered wing and breast! The lighthouse breakers make their nest, And hedges bloom for them no more- No more. In their old church the lovers stand. His wedding ring is on her hand, All partings o’er. Alas […]
The Winged Mariners
Through the wild night, the silence and the dark, Through league on league of the uncharted sky, Lonelier than dove of fable from its ark, The fieldfares fly. Mate with his tiny mate, and younglings frail, That only knew the crevice of their tree Until, in faith stupendous, they set sail Across the sea. […]
The Watchman
Through jewelled windows in the walls The tender daylight smiles; Majestic music swells and falls Adown the stately aisles; Shadows of carven roof and rood, Of stony saints and angels, brood Above the altar-glow; They cannot dim the shining face Of one conspicuous in his place Amid the forms below. He that was once […]
The Virgin Martyr
Every wild she-bird has nest and mate in the warm April weather, But a captive woman, made for love – no mate, no nest has she. In the spring of young desire, young men and maids are wed together, And the happy mothers flaunt their bliss for all the world to see: Nature’s sacramental […]
The Vain Question
Why should we court the storms that rave and rend, Safe at our household hearth? Why, starved and naked, without home or friend, Unknowing whence we came or where we wend, Follow from no beginning to no end An uncrowned martyr’s path? Is it worth while to waste our all in vain? To seek, […]
The Soldiers Grave
‘Twas long ago, in the summer-time, On a day as sad as this, That I laid my babe in its father’s arms, And he gave it his farewell kiss; When the army sail’d from the English shores In a mist of sun and rain, To the vine-clad hills and citadels And the olive groves […]
The Silence In The Church
(No. 1.) O Holy Spirit, we entreat, Send down Thy quickening fire; Let Thine own presence, dread and sweet, These waiting hearts in spire. In every thought and word and deed, Breathe Thou the breath of life- The fulness of the grace they need For their appointed strife. Help them to hold, in clasp […]
The Season
And must I wear a silken life, Hemmed in by city walls? And must I give my garden up For theatres and balls? Nay, though the cage be made of gold, ‘Tis better to be free; The green of the green meadows, love, Is quite enough for me. I’d rather ramble through the lanes […]
The Resting Place
“Because I live, ye shall live also.” Calmly the Paschal moonlight now is sleeping On mossy hillock and on headstone grey, Where still our Mother holds in faithful keeping Such as, while living, in her dear arms lay. Ah! loving and beloved, we know ye rest, E’en in the grave, upon her hallow’d breast. […]
The Old Manor House
An old house, crumbling half away, all barnacled and lichen-grown, Of saddest, mellowest, softest grey,-with a grand history of its own- Grand with the work and strife and tears of more than half a thousand years. Such delicate, tender, russet tones of colour on its gables slept, With streaks of gold betwixt the stones, […]