Naija Poetry | Anxious Outcast

Ralph Okafor

Biography: I am a short pencil in the hands of a writing God sending a love message to the world.

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Ralph Okafor

Saturday 10 June 2023

INVICTUS.

_No matter how far the river is,

_I must bring some water home.

_No matter how dense the forest might be,

_I must hew some wood home.

_No matter how difficult it might be,

_I must succeed.

_To the open road,

_In faith I go.

Ærø..✍️

Ralph Okafor

Saturday 10 June 2023

OPEN LETTER

Dear Mother,

I am nolonger the son I was,

I have to admit, I have changed.

Just remember the child you nursed.

Dear Brothers,

I am nolonger the brother I used to be,

I have to admit, I have changed.

Just remember the bro you grew up with.

Dear Friends,

I am nolonger the friend I was,

I have to admit, I have changed.

Just remember the buddy you ones knew.

Dear Wife,

I am nolonger the hubby you met,

I have to admit, I have changed.

Just remember the gent you fell in love with.

Dear Child,

I am nolonger the father I was,

I have to admit, I have changed.

Just remember the dad that rocked your cradle.

Dearest,

I apologize if I haven't been the son,

brother, friend, spouse and the father you truly deserve,

But I want you to know that in my way I love you all.

Ærø...✍️

Ralph Okafor

Thursday 11 August 2022

Umasonim ~ Followed by Goodness.

To where do we go..,Umasonim the question set my imagination wild.

I reckon that the end of the world will be a brief walk in ur company..,

And eternity is a short time to spend with you.

Umasom there is no particular place I could think up or think of.

If there was a place called nowhere..,it will be worth going.

Because anywhere you are Umasonim is worth being.

Lest, there are so many nice places we might wish to go ~ yet none is indeed beautiful without you.

It's so surreal to imagine, you and I, hand in hand..,our hearts bound in love.

Tranversing the globe as troubadour would do.

The way may be long but we'll knock off the longitude and run our westing down..,

Come what mayeth come our way..,

As long as you are there Umasonim to light my way.

Let terror and fright attend our way, you have my hand to hold irrespective.

I will continue to follow you and let you lead the way.

Ralph Okafor

Saturday 16 July 2022

Do Not Stand By My Grave And Weep...To Làbàkè

Làbàke,

Do not stand by my grave and weep,

For your tears butters no parsnip,

Nor can it wash the world out of it.

I am gone forever.

The news should make you glad,

That the world has stopped for me.

You always wanted me out of the way and out of your life.

Làbàkè now you can dance on my grave.

Làbàkè,

Spare me your maudlin sympathy,

And save me those sugary tears,

I know they are of guilt and not of pity.

So waste not thy time kissing up to me.

You DON'T have to laugh to my face.

For your tears do not move me.

They are bitter mockery.

Làbàkè save yourself the shame.

Làbàkè,

Take this wreath home with you,

You never adorned my life,

So why decorate my grave?

Of what use is this garland to me anyways.

Even the grasses around me look better on me

Than your so called affection

Am clearly out of the way.

Làbàkè now you can have your way.

Ralph Okafor

Saturday 16 July 2022

MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL (To Owo victims)

Under the dome of St'Patricks Catholic church,

An unprecedented murder perpetrated.

From all crevice of Owo,

Parishioners en massed to celebrate the Eucharist.

A communion unparalleled.

Joyful spirit sang in praise and thanksgiving,

And a prayer rendered.

Anon!

An insurrection broke out in the thick of the mass.

And ahomily became homicidal.

In pandemonium parishioners scuttled for safety.

Their supplication suddenly overwhelmed the hymn.

The alter and other sacramentals were desecrated in this dastard act,

Even the cassock was stained with blood.

The golden chalice fell,

And the fair linen was soaked with the blood of Christ.

Fate stampeded faith,

As tons of bodies haplessly layed,

Of tongues that roared Hallelujah now silently singing,

With a grateful heart fellow parishioners lied.

With open eyes fused on the cross - the only way.

Ralph Okafor

Monday 18 April 2022

UNTITLED.

Darkness crept over the landscape,

The ambient moon was so sickened and pale with grief.

It was a bloody night,

A cold and memorable wake.

As the sun rose on our graves.

What an irony of situation?

Our cry of anguish unmistakable.

End SARS,

End police brutality,

End bad govt.

A tribute to a long life of silence, strife and suffering.

Drawn by our hopes and dreams to great lengths,

From far and near we converged,

Depending on one anothers determination.

So we threaded the distance in a peaceful protest.

Very resourceful and well organised.

Embellishing their defeats before them.

Every step of the way they stalked us like wolves with evil intentions.

Our guts irritating them.

Lest, they repressed our claims with recriminations and counter accusations.

They termed our actions public disobedience.

Though a mere decenting voice to the truth we speak.

And in a pack of spell trouble they responded to us with greater wickedness, assualt and cruelty ever than before.

At gun point our future was hijacked in the dead of the night.

Unarmed, harmless to the very least innocent.

In greater numbers we fell and are constantly falling.

Lifeless bodies slained.

Helpless strains of the wounded.

We became shooting targets for long range practice.

No mercy shown.

No remorse or pity nor compassion.

Two years too long,

No justice for the slain

And no core action to address our course.

Even though the more visage sign of protest may have gone,

Like many of comrades so long.

Ralph Okafor

Thursday 3 March 2022

Electioneering

The stage is set,

Another season of electioneering is upon us.

The foolery has begun.

Bad roads are now undergoing quick fixes,

Drainages are now excavated,

Maternity centres and general hospitals are now receiving daily medical supplies.

Constituencies are now sponsoring new blocks and donating tons of writing materials to schools.

Boreholes are now being built and commissioned daily.

Town halls are being renovated and our market places wearing new looks.

Our mothers are now being empowered in diverse ways.

Bills are now presented and signed into law at the snap of a finger.

All of a sudden,

The status of the nation is work in progress.

Government at all quarters appear busy.

Awoken to their core responsibilities and duties.

Posters, catalogues and memos are flying around.

Suddenly our Abuja based politicians have remembered their root.

And our village paths are worn out by these august visitors.

Like a pack of spell, our nemesis have returned to haunt us.

In their long convoys accompanied with countless retinues.

They scare us away from the road like rats.

In their trunk, gifts of all sort display.

The village chiefs, the women leaders, market women, the youth name them

Have a hanpack carefully packed.

One after the other we receive them,

Bidders in this auction of popularity.

And to all of them we give our blessings.

We can't possibly say no to them.

Our poverty not our will consents.

Foolish electorates,

Our doom lies with us,

And our passion have forged our fetters.

What to eat and drink have become solely and solidly the foundation of our alliance.

A fact well known to these rice missionary politicians.

So they continue to go for our jugular.

Ralph Okafor

Thursday 3 March 2022

I can't

Even if the task is daunting,
Even when there seems to be no way out,
Even when you have no option,
Nonetheless, never say I can't.

The word is like poison to the soul.
It tramples on your self worth,
It limits your ability,
And it shows how far you are ready to go.

No matter what, say I will try.
Do what you must
If you fail, just do it again
Until you succeed.

Ralph Okafor

Saturday 26 February 2022

BOY SCOUTS

Our thoughts are long long thoughts.

Our dreams are dreams that can not die.

Not even the menace of the years

can make us forget our boys dreams.

The dreams of the day that were,

we besieged and beget.

Hope enshrined in a savage song vilely composed.

That impacts a prophesy so wild and vain.

I remember the gleam and gloom on the school boys faces

Singing along such flattering and deceitful song

With the pedigree of the boy scout

We did the good turn daily.

Afoot and light heartedly marching to muffled drum beats.

That tone which is mournful now and soar.

The lines of that wayword song throbs in my memory still.

Words from that fatal song come over me like a chill.

Indeed, we are the leaders of tomorrow.

The burden of that old song mumurs and whispers.

And with joy that ache my heart to wander back

To find the old school boys still basking

in this strange old delicious burden.

Ralph Okafor

Saturday 26 February 2022

Sweet Repose II

Lol and behold,

A homey grave in a lonely courtyard.

Very pleasing to behold.

Indeed, a lot of peace abides in silence.

Amazed,

I watched as tranquillity thrilled the nitch with life.

The sun lushed,

Whilst the shadow of the Baobab tree fell gracefully over the grave.

In dying whispers,

The soul beneath was speaking in a voice I could not understand.

But his delights suffice.

Nothing beats the sight.

Slowly and slowly,

I advanced closer,

My belly swooned.

Envious of the body that lies therein.

My thanatophobia soon vanished.

Oh! Death,

I embraced this bed of roses.

Romanticizing the day I will be lowered into the ground.

The epitaph on the grave read...

Hic iacet corpus...(Here lies the body of...)

But none but my name hung on my lips.

I hope one day I will welcome this kind of peace.

Rest in peace to this unknown name.

Ralph Okafor

Friday 25 February 2022

Sweet Repose I

Oh! Death,

What a peaceful sleep too sweet to rest.

To lie down in the soft heart of the earth

With the sun and the rain foddling what is left.

Ralph Okafor

Friday 4 March 2022

The State of A nation.

They have plundered the gold,

They have plundered the silver,

A nation ones so full of treasures have been plundered.

Plundered by men entrusted to guard the treasury vault.

Whom upon their conscience and charater

In the name of God and all things glorified.

Avowed to govern least.

By virtue decreed

To be and not to be.

Just as familiar as an oath.

Oh! they are not incapable of breaking their promise,

Oath taking was a cloak.

To trigger our our believes.

Blasphemers, cons and shylocks

They are not committed to carry out their duties wholeheartedly

In the letter and in the spirit of all applicable rules of ethics and cannons of conduct.

But the Lord has taken account of their vows.

They have forced us down the garden path.

What was ones deemed a worthy nation now drowns in the cesspit of luxury.

Deprived and impoverished by unlawful acts

Such as stealing and looting in public offices.

There is enough to go round, enough to keep.

More than enough to reward with, enough to be stolen.

What belongs to you is whatever you can take and keep.

As long as you first get it all.

Ralph Okafor

Tuesday 11 January 2022

Deaths Harrasing Thoughts

I have stood beside eternity in countless times,

Stranded beside the graves of those I truly love,

(Mama Ngbonkwo, my fondest grandparents Ba AND Nne, and my dad)

Slow and low, as they are lowered into the ground.

As I caretake in this moment immersed in the particulars.

The good old days seem out of reach.

Only memories of the deceased.

I am not a stranger to the grave.

the prospect of death is a burden that I carry.

I have been trying to climb out of that hole.

and ruin the thought of an open casket.

But the more I try the more I fall back inside.

Ralph Okafor

Monday 28 February 2022

Anxious Outcast

Like a memory lost, I live like I have died.

I have been forsaken and forgotten.

I am alive, yet buried in the minds of many.

I HAVE been trashed and disgraced,

Trapped by mistakes and displaced,

I would not apologize for the way you see me

But let those with advise for me please refrain

and those with love remain.

Am good being alone.

I have taken stock of my life

And I have also buried those who died within me.

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