I’m tired of the teeter-totter polemics
that pass for profundity.
I’m tired of the see-saw tug of war,
the streaming regurgitation on every channel.
Yes, I’m weary of the predictable posturing,
the vapid, barren landscapes of the oligarchy.
I am groggy in the dull fog of capitalist pretense,
the plutocratic hubris sold by carnival barkers.
I am worn down by the endless banal chatter,
the mindless daily clutter flooding all our
electronic screens, all our senses.
Scientists in a million years will
try to decipher our primitive etchings.
Our digital scribble will remain.
Will they recognize our AI ventriloquism?
Will they distinguish us from chimpanzees?
I don’t have answers in my advancing years.
I’ll find cozy books and trees instead,
while we still have them.
once upon a time
in the fifties and sixties
school playgrounds had small merry-go-rounds
and teeter totters aka seesaws
our slides were as tall as our nine story school house
safety was not a big deal
no one wore helmets or kneepads
our job was to play
have adventures and love our life
I miss those playgrounds
Life boat totters on the crest of a wave
of turbulence ! Me lone sailor on sea.
To reach destination, propelling brave.
Halcyon horizon not yet to see.
Violent vibrant vortex, rough and tough
Life boat totters on the crest of a wave,
falls unstable sinking at hole of trough.
Up down thrust of waves convex and concave.
Tornado - cyclone hostile to behave.
Indigo hued horizon too far.
Life boat totters on the crest of a wave.
Me desperate to sail, chasing despair.
Valiant, valorous on adventure !
I must vanquish holocaust and save
the vessel from sudden burst and rupture.
Life boat totters on the crest of a wave.
So slowly on his rotting feet,
the zombie totters down the street,
he cannot think and cannot feel,
but searches for his latest meal,
and then he bites the human prey -
another zombie's made that day!
written 12th May for Constance's Z words writing challenge - zombie
Being free happy and young
Having lots of playground fun
Merry go round makes you dizzy
You try to stand with your head wizzy
Teeter totters up and down
In the air and on the ground
Slides so big or really small
Going down is fun for all
Seeing how high you can swing
And jumping off like you had wings
Climbing across monkey bars
Seeing if you can get far
Crawling in tunnels is like a maze
Escaping in different ways
Lots of silly childhood things to do
I'm older, can I still do it too
I bit into the hardest of suckers
‘Cause I’m no longer a big huge baby
With moods a lot like teeter-totters.
Now, I’m who I always wanted to be.
Draped in the darkness of the night
In a weather so dull and blight
Sad thoughts like a deadly shooter
Come out to bombard her outright
Shaking off their fitful slumber
They rise from their inert stupor
From the reservoir deep, spill out
As through newly opened shutter
They come from an unknown hideout
As all trace of life to wipe out
Unable to block the current
She totters in a drunken bout
They spill forth in mighty torrent,
With a beastly force violent
Like an angry mob on long wait,
Infringing all rules, nonchalant
Caught in the vortex of that spate
Her body began to gyrate
She lost all her sense of balance
Her sad fate, no one could abate
May.13. 2022
~Placed First~
Rubaiyat Poetry Contest
8 syllables per line
Rhyme scheme- aaba-bbcb-ccdc-dded-eefe.
Sponsor- Sotto Poet
The slicky-slide stands silent, no shrill shouts,
No children in the playground in these hereabouts,
The swings are dangling in the breeze, I smile,
Teeter-Totters leaning in the Tower of Pisa-style.
The COVID-19 pandemic has kept the kid at home,
No children playing on the merry-go-round dome
My smile quickly turns to a sad, grimacing frown,
Someone has taken the horizontal ladders down
The park is a sad place with the playground so bare,
But, it won’t be too long before children are there.
written June 13, 2021
There is babies’ workshop
Too much care is the scare
The leanest is in the chair
Hand in the chin thinking
“Today, we make history”
The fattest rises and shouts
“Listen, Mam is most loving
Away from home one seven
Me in bed twenty four seven
No Mam, fingers milk bottle”
The shortest rises, no word
Touches his legless limbs
All the babies cry out loud
“Who are you, one of us sure?
No meat, no bone, no juice?”
Another totters to the front
Touches stomach and smiles
“I, you look, no belly, no air”
All babies giggle and giggle
"No belly, no food, no heart"
And the workshop rolls on
Then chair makes roll call
“Mother” - absent, no apology
“Father”- absent, no apology
“Sibling”- absent, no apology
Chair sinks in chair with joy
“Mothers, mother the motherless
Fathers, father the fatherless
All absent no apology, no care
Babies we go build own empire”
Sometimes, the pernicious
is just desserts like alveoli
losing pink to a ciggy devil
Love - an enterprise astral
yields to blemish: mockery
Garish sentry sneers, reflecting
on a visage muting its boo-hoo
on a traverse still willed in woo
Silly teeter-totters with serious
editing tears that dampen a life…
(10/31/2020: Gibson HB, DMS)
The child loves to go to the park and pick up sticks.
Like a dog, he will try to bring
one impossibly long stick home,
but he is 4 and by 4 o’clock
he is getting tired.
He still will not let go of one end.
He totters to the car like this,
at the carpark
he is actually sleepwalking.
I wake up,
a wandering hermit crab slips back into its shell.
Time concertinas,
the mind plays tricks in too much light or dark.
It’s 4 in the morning,
I’ve been gripping the end of a twisted sheet.
Strange,
but I want to take it home.
Everything's foretold; yet free will's given
We choose our futures; they do not choose us
The Greeks thought the world to be Fate-driven
Not so! Every man drives Destiny's bus
God gives us the tools with which to serve Him
Eyes to see... Ears to hear... A tongue to talk
We can choose to use them--- or abuse them
Whether or not in His Ways we will walk
The world of Nature holds no such choices
Tree limbs stretch skyward; flowers open wide
God gave humankind opinions, voices
Blank faces, where bitter resentments hide
Once, cast I my bread upon Life's waters
~ My ship has come in; the verdict totters
Picture # 3 - "Your Own Title"
'Choices' Poetry Contest'
Sponsor: Sara Kendrick
May 15, 2019
The nervous chatter
The haunted stares
The muted prayers
Their motherland
Totters all about
Democracy gone bad
Democracy a tool
Of elites to amass..
Power with a guise
Of legitimate rule..
A sad twist of affairs
Has the motherland
Tottering in gloom
Modernization.. is it
Westernization.. is it
Democracy.. elitism
Now has them disillusioned
Going at each others jugular
Please dream my people
Of home grown solutions
Please do break away
From the chains of reasons
From the chains in seasons
To get to the top
Stay with the best
Follow in His steps
The teacher in your life
Pains drift to my humour
Trouble comes like seizure
But fling it goes like winds
Mind that totters in dilemma
Who else but my mind
The worst I left behind
Yet, the best and my friend
The meaning of my living
Follow not, but doubts
It calls to follow, how?
Who else to obey,
The angel or the evil?
Mind, you are, my teacher
Hours to second of my decision
The pain in my mission
When mind is the guardian
A giant, he growls like a lion, hops
like a butterfly, and stings like a bee.
In his mouth, a viper's fang; a punch
fells a foe and folds up a fight.
He shares the outer space with lightning
and thunder, hones the art of rumble in
the jungle. Thriller in Manilla arcs across
the sky, emitting hysteric waves
beneath the clouds, echoing A-li! A-li!
Parkinsoned awhile, he totters till
the rumble, the thrill, and the echo
fade out...The oak tumbles.
The world erupts: The Greatest's Gone!
© 2016 Celestine S. Ikwuamaesi
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