Under Construction

I wrote this poem two years ago towards the end of my NYSC program - i was worried sick about getting a job and striking out on my own... It felt like being kicked out the house, you know, and i was scared about what the future had for me. I'm pretty much ok now, of course, but my life-building is still way far from being completed.
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I’m at work on my building
I’m at work on my life;
Tomorrow will be better, they say
But for now, its still night.
Working by candlelight on
The mistakes of yonder years
I clean up the angles of my ambition
And straighten my building-plan.

Talent ain’t enough
You need lots of luck
’Cos it’s hardest at the foundations
Setting rods of sweat and hardwork;
Mixing mortars of expense, and
Laying brick after painful brick
I work on past the lintels
Aiming for the lime lights.

Sometimes I want to
Hang my tools, follow the sway
Just curl up in bed, and
Cry the night away.
But I ain’t slacking, ain't slacking
Not till my life is roofed, and I
Pull up my poor, battered, jagged
Rugged construction post.

’Cos
My life is under construction
Growing from a boy to a man
And the working team is made up
Of Me, Myself, and I.

FURY

It burns like fire
In the pits of consciousness
Setting the blood ablaze.
It’s a primal force,
A fireball of red thunder
That strikes and rolls across
All in its way.

In its grip,
Angels become demons
Peacemakers see blood red
And reality turns scarlet fuzzy.
Like the legendary salamander
It consumes and consumes
Till it consumes itself.

It’s a demon that possesses
One and devours all;
It’s a screaming dragon
Called fury

Funny Pain - a poem

He came from the west
Blue-eyed and bright-eyed,
Like the others before him
Quite grown-up, yet so young.
He was by our indifference mystified
And our levity stumped;
We only ‘amened’ his libations
– What could it hurt?

Confounded at last
And befuddled, he asks:
“Why do ye suffer so, and still
“Smile so?”
But our grins just stretch wider
Belying our bleeding souls
For having aged in our cribs
We are young, yet oh so old.

“Look-ee here,” we say,
“Look, behold the slums and cities
This here land you see
Is the land of Funny Pain.
Our first-borns eat their shares
And ours, too, then speak glib
Refined tongue-in-cheek
While we, the children of lesser gods
Swallow bitter spittle, and
Guffaw in misery.”