An Interlude with the Sun by Oladehinde Ibikunle

An Interlude with the Sun 

The feeble sun glided down

Tucking itself into the western horizon

It cast its golden hue on my face

And threw my shadow behind me.

"It will soon be night,

What's undone will soon be rued

And that which was done

Will soon be relished."

Oladehinde Ibikunle

If You See Mr President by Oladehinde Ibikunle

If you see Mr President

tell him that we know

about those unfathomed speeches

rendered on spotless white sheets

about the queer achievements

that are too big for our eyes to behold.

Tell him we also know that

they are soon becoming a tale.

If you see Mr President

tell him that we won't talk about the huge debts

that were shamelessly incurred

but we are proud to tell the world

and assure the lenders

that our children will pay them in triple folds.

Tell him also that we now know

that competence has a tribe

and belongs to a specific faith.

And please, tell him 

that change has begun with us

we patronise this understaffed hospital

but United Kingdom is just a stone throw

when his excellency has cold.

9th January, 2023

Oladehinde Ibikunle

Teach Me

Teach Me by Oladehinde Ibikunle

Teach me

To speak, to write and to act

Without tenuating the tenets of truth.

Teach me

Oh, to love with the whole heart

Whether - or not - such love be unrequited.

Teach me

To douse my anger

When my heart is bedevilled with fury.

Teach me

That anger is insanity, sadness is folly

And happiness is but sweet ecstasy.

Teach me

To smile and try again

When the sadness of failure betides.

Teach me

My peace to hold, the impulse to control

When happiness holds the rein of my heart.

Teach me

To live each day in furtherance

Of yesterday at my own little pace.

Teach me

To live not by competition

But by the pursuit of internal happiness

Teach me

Yes, teach me of contentment

Even if everything altogether is a pinch of salt.

Teach me

Please, teach me to laugh

For each cackle of laughter, they say, is priceless.

Teach me

On my fellow, mercy to have

For my soul abhors seeing a fellow languishing.

Teach me

To be remorseful and sorry

Whenever I fall fallibly to imperfection.

Teach me

The good and the bad to know

And to discern when any of them comes disguising.

Oladehinde Ibikunle

Euphony of Myself by Oladehinde Ibikunle

The eulogy of my spirit

Which is the euphony of myself, 

My soul rises from His temple

Bearing a big lamp

Bows in worship of poetry.

I am that undaunted pen

That writes on an uneven tablet

Some rhetoric pentametres.

I am the poet of ludicrous limericks, 

I am the poet of witty didactics.

I write of carnality, I write of spirituality 

Of loathing and of loving.

I am the vibrant writer for the bored, 

I am the philosophical poet of the day

Writing melancholies of life's ephemiralty.

I am the bare footed bard

I am the mortal poet

With an indefatigable heart

Toiling an inexorable path

To the starry sky.

I write verses of elegaic dirge, 

I write odes to new moppet.

I am for the dead - I am for the living

The Sun has furiously frown'd at me-

At same me, the Sun has sedately smiled.

I am the worthless bagatelle; 

I am the rejected lad

I am the celebrated bard.

I thought of pleasures of Heaven

I thought of pains of Hell

If they were real, I would make one; 

But if not, I would make none.

I have felt the chagrin of failure

As much as the prestige of success, 

I moan'd and winced in distress

And I have rejoiced in great euphoria.

I am the rejected - I am the celebrated

I have recieved unmentionable hatred

As much as immeasureable love.

Thus, ask you me: 

Whence are all these, 

Whither are all these? 

I have not the answer

For I, myself, do not know.

But go you thither

To that soul of mine

That worships His god of poetry.

When I sleep

It is but poetry, 

When I am sad, let me write

For I will be happy.

When I am happy, let me write

For it will make me pensive.

Poetry is the path I tread

My head is full of it

My heart is brim'd of it

My whole soul is in it.

From poetry I am drunk

It controls my thought

It controls my life

Let my mouth be mute

My fingers and pen will never be mute.

An urgly physiognomy I possess

But my fingers are most beautiful

And for these reasons, a poet I be

I have no god, no love, no hobby

Poetry is my all.

I ate in the dish of poetry

Witty are mine own words, 

I drank from the eternal cup

Of water poison'd of poetry

I have been cursed of poetry

In it I live

And in it shall I die! 

Or let me die now

And wrap me with poems

And bare me to the cemetary

A coffin of poet, a grave of poet

I will be glad I die in poetry.