...... Another
Dreary year
Is ending ... Dear
Father Santa! Here
We have been waiting,
Waiting and  waiting
To receive your gifts
That lifts
Our depressed  spirits
Rejuvenate our minds ....
We are the destitute children
Of war - torn Palestine
Waiting for your healing touch
And food for dinner and lunch ...
We are the underprivileged
Weak and malnourished
Tiny tots expecting clothes to cover
In this biting cold winter?
What miracle would you perform
To soothe us who  suffer from
Dangerous life - threatening diseases
Due to scant hospital facilities ?
Santa ! Could you, like Christ ,
Restore the fading eye- sight
To pellet - ridden Kashmiri kids
Or bullet - ridden Yemeni  lads ?
Waiting for your presentation
And your emancipation
Of the whole world of children
We, Santa, are looking for your inspiration

​

Looking at the sky
Did you wonder  how and why
Black holes are formed .... ?!
And particulate matter destroyed ?
Look at the earth ...
You will find
Innumerable holes
Darker than black holes ....
These holes -
Mines or manholes
Septic tanks or potholes  -
Squeeze helpless humans
Sucking their lives
Black holes are fascinating
Imagining them is exciting!
But holes on earth
Are traps of death ....
A grim reality!
Blot on humanity !

​King is safe 
In his ' square' 
As long as he's protected 
By bishops, knights and rooks
And all powerful queen !
Rulers are safe 
As long as they're protected 
By cavalry , infantry, army 
And strategic ministers !
Pawns are the first line of defence 
Like ordinary foot soldiers 
In the army
When pawns cross over 
To the other side of the board,
They acquire additional powers
And can even attack Kings!
Foot soldiers - 
Ordinary masses - 
Wage struggles 
And attain powers 
That can threaten the mighty rulers !
Don't underestimate pawns 
On chess board 
Or the majority masses 
Capability!

​NGOZI OLIVIA OSUOHA is a Nigerian poet/writer/thinker. A graduate of Estate Management with experience in Banking and Broadcasting. She has published over one hundred poems/articles in over ten countries. Her first two longest poems of 355 and 560 verses titled THE TRANSFORMATION TRAIN and LETTER TO MY UNBORN published in Kenya and Canada respectively are available on Amazon. She has also featured in over ten international anthologies/books/blogs. She is a passionate African ink.

Elegant, tall and fair
Shapely, beautiful with hair,
Firm modest breasts
Moderate, succulent nest,
You were a seer, a prophetess.

Granny, you were our nanny
Farming was your passion,
You taught us planting and weeding
Got Mum to eat 'akpu'
Dad, you could not
Always prepared it for us,
Always picked 'okwe' for us
Always washed our clothes at 'iyi akwa'
Always fetched firewood,
You made miracles each noon
Before we returned from school,
You are incredibly unforgettable.

You were strong and young
Sound, like the gong,
Soft and proverbial
Loving and factual
Death blew it all.

Your 'first day' in hospital
The next day in the mortuary,
From Uzoma to Uzonna
The story ended in tragedy.

We miss you dearly
Like 'Nwakwa' and 'Ihuoma'
Your two little girls,
The aunts we never had:
The tributes we could not write.

Your one and only family
Ajuonuma, Grace, Uche, Mezie, Cham, Ngozi, Nkem and Ugoo.

Humbly Submitted:
THE PREAMBLE IN MEMORY OF LATE JENNY UKACHI OSUOHA, DIED ON (21/01/2000)

​You and me
In this dry wilderness,
Dark and lonely
We would find love.

You and me
In this valley of hurt,
Thirsty and hungry
We would find love.

You and me
In this high mountain
Fearful and dreadful,
We would find love.

You and me
In this world of hate
Radical with race
Magical with face,
Tropical with pace,
Typical with ace
We would find love:
Upon our homeward way.

You and me
Breaking hell to tell
The story of our escape,
To a cruel world
Yes, we would find love
Just you and me.

​Beautiful and fresh
Green and lively,
Scented ornaments
Fragrance of love,
You grow and grow
You blossom and blossom,
You boom beyond imaginations
You create unique awareness
And cherish your lover
As he does too,
When you are tampered
When you are pampered
When you are shattered
When you are tattered,
You still love
You regenerate and yield your increase,
I love you, dear petals
Because you never give up.

​Come, follow me
Come, join me,
Come, give me your hand
Let me lead you.

Come, never say never
Follow me to the hills
And below the valleys,
Let me show you fountains
Fountains of love and peace.

Come, let me take you to the Riverside
You will see the oceans and streams,
There, there is cool and calm
Where serenity is vision,
Follow me to the love garden,
Let me spoil you more than you can take.

​If you are not rich
Nobody recognises you,
You would remain behind
And in the dark.

If you are not rich
Your talents waste on the street,
They may make you a vagabond
And a notorious pond,
If you are not rich
No one supports you.

If you are not rich
No titles for you,
In the church, in the society
They can only use you
Abuse, and misuse you too.

If you are not rich
You are a nonentity
If you are not rich
You do not have a choice,
Neither do you have a voice.

If you are not rich
No matter your intelligence
They can only tap and drink you,
Like palm wine, fresh and raw
When they are done tapping
They cut you down from the root.

​The wings of money
They spread length and width,
Breadth, height and depth.

The wings of money
They fly up and down,
Left, right and center.

The wings of money,
They fly beyond borders
They reach heaven and hell.

The wings of money
They connect all the corners,
The living, the dead and the unborn.

The wings of money
They wake the dead
And prolong the dying,
They fly the living.
And welcome the unborn.

The wings of money
The antennas of sense
The tentacles of space,
The oracles of gesture
The pinnacles of protection
The miracles of future
The spectacles of vision
The obstacles of objection.

The wings of money
Flying nooks and crannies
Buying books for nannies
Paying cooks for grannies.

The wings of money
The gods must be crazy
Because the rich also cry
Even if no one but you.

​There is a destiny that suffers
For another to linger,
There is a voice that echoes
For the other to be a singer.

There is a sacrifice to be made
For someone to be the head,
There is a fight to be lost
For the unborn to avoid a cost.

There is a game to be played
For victory to be assured,
There is a fame to be attained
For history to be featured.

There is a mirror to be broken
For a speaker to be loud,
There is an error to be corrected
For the people to be proud.

There is a choice to be picked
For the vision to be clearer,
There is a prayer to be answered
For tomorrow to be brighter.

The truth of the matter is:
What is written is written.

​There is a body
In all we study
But when we are moody
We sell the ruby.

The rose is for love
But the move
And the one who drove
Can chase the dove.

So let the melody
Be of rhapsody
For the muddy
Not to get our buddy.

​The same money
That buys honey
Buys the donkey
That carries the monkey.

The bunch of plantain
Growing in the mountain
Can maintain
The plain
Of our fountain.

Let there be harmony
In our matrimony
For the world to have a melody.

Sing with me this song
Song of redemption,
Of melody and harmony.

​You are so kind
And down to death,
You are so tolerant
And fair to me,
O my angel
I want to be like you
Please help me dear,
Let me grow more and more
And be an angel too,
Just like you.

​I am that bird
That flies in the air
Spreading her wings
To perch on your window.

I am that dream
That wakes you at night
Making you to pray
For another day.

I am that rain
That falls on your roof
Keeping you cool
To sleep well at night.

I am that soothing breeze
That makes you sneeze,
For you to remember my kiss
And the peace I bring you.

I am that your love
The love that loves you real
To teach you real love.

​My fragile heart is for you
And my pure love for you,
My peaceful heart searches
And my lovely soul yearns.

Lo, I am here
Whispering to your ears
Lo, I wait
Wondering if you care.

My poor frame is strong
And my beautiful mind prays
Lo, I am here
Wandering not to stray.

Dear love, my heart is real
Sweetheart, I am here for you
Would you let me in?

​I have dreamt of death
Far too many times
To continue to
Force myself
Through the never-ending
            Torment
Of life.
Its cyclical torture
Pushing me
And pulling me.
And I am tired –
I dream of death
As a helping hand
That tenderly brings me
To sandy beaches
Where the waves roll
And the stars
Kiss the treetops
And it’s so silent
That I can no longer
Hear you calling for me –
But –
My premature
            Death
Would only be peaceful
For so long
Before one day
You die too –
And will you join me
Then –
In the sand –
And will we get
A second chance –
But if our bodies
Are to be covered in thorns
And our lungs
Filled with silence
We can only hope
That the ocean
            Have mercy on us
And drown us both.
 
 
 

​I have an indelible infatuation
With the way the air sits
In the hush of the morning.
We are waiting
In steaming cups of coffee
For sugar
And a spoon –
And we are the sidewalks
Before feet
Rocks, pebbles
Rolling
    in
      the
        rush
            of life –
too fast           can never catch up –
And you,
The inexhaustible heat waiting
But there is no peace
In your apprehension –
Your antipathy
To the morning
Offensive and unjust –
The dying calm
Ravages my bitter bones,
I am waiting for you,
You are waiting for she,
She is waiting for something,
And the mourning is waiting for me.
 
 
 

​Running into
Walls, cracking under
The pressure of it all me
Or the wall – you may never
Know and that is how
I like it. Or love it. Love is such
            An ugly word.
I hate it.
I hate you
Or me I’m not
So sure anymore
Which mask is teasing me.
Like the way a dog’s hair
Stands on end at
Any sign of fear
There are sirens in my body
That drown out
Every sINging choir
That keeps me
SANE
I can hear nothing else and I
Remember in school
When my choir teacher would
Tell us that it’s okay
To sing the wrong notes
As long as we sing it loud
And that is when I
First learned about how to make
The right kind of mistake
And now
I am convinced that maybe
The choir inside my bones
Deep underneath my skin just
Doesn’t know the words
And I wish they would just shut up
But they never stop singing
And I blame them for every mistake
I make every mistake.
 

​If my soul
Has nowhere
To go
When it leaves
Its home
I hope
She makes friends
With the universe –
And with my
Eyes to the sky
For eternity
She will smile
At me
From time to time
To reassure me
That my passing
Has made the
Stars brighter
And the universe
Vaster
Than ever before.
 
 
 

​There are trees in
Places that have
Seen more of my
Palm than my own
Fingertips –
My knuckles
Rage with jealousy
At the boundaries
Between
Them and intimacy.
And the branches
Crookedly reach to share
My secrets with
The breeze
And the man
In the cabin
Taps the bark
Of every one he sees
But not every tree
Is a maple –
And the syrup
Isn’t always sweet –
 
 
 
 
 

​When I feel chained to earth
and pulled down
by the cares of this world,
I often drive to Enid Lake 
and watch the flocks of birds 
flying
out over the water,
up over the land,
and I imagine 
what it must feel like
to be free of the earth,
flying,
soaring high 
on silvery wings
up into the sky
higher and higher
buoyed by the wind,
sailing on an ocean,
an ocean of air,
and way up there
they must feel joy
in their own way
for they are free
as they look down on me
and other earthbound creatures…
I look up at them
as they turn and dip
and float in the breeze,
and I could swear
that they have not a care
as they soar so gracefully there,
but no wonder –
they are flying!
and if I could only join them,
I would be as free
and filled with joy
as they seem to be.
I would not have a care
as long as I was up there
far above the earth
and gliding
in the cool, light air,
free… free –
flying!

​I tossed a stone into the water
and watched the ripple it created,
and so I tossed another
and then another,
and the ripples expanded…
Suddenly, I fell
into the water;
the water rose,
first to my knees,
then to my waist,
and finally over my head.
I felt myself going under,
and there was seemingly nothing
I could do about it.
I was intrigued by the water
and drawn to the water
because I had been thirsty
for so long,
but now I’m drowning,
about to go under
for the final time – 
a high price to pay
for wanting and needing
water to nourish me,
water to fill me up,
water to wash over me,
wash my past away,
water to renew me,
water alive for me,
with me, and in me, 
but I am swept away
out to sea,
stranded,
with no one but me
to see my folly. 

​1.
She asked me about social silence. The words jumped off her cheeks like happy dolphins. I leaned on the thin space between us - hoping  the remaining words may fall on my skin, that they may lick the dryness off my skin. I told her she is pretty in all languages. She smiled. She knew.
2.
I asked for her number. When I called her phone the following night,  words tumbled into the receiver, "yo, who am I spikin' with". I called her a love poem. She told me not every love poem end sweet,  some end...tragic. I asked her how she will end. She said "like a mist, like a mist". Mist. Mist
3.
And she disappeared. Like a mist. They said the sea took her. They said the sea is a jealous type, it can't bear anyone loving its' own in a way that is beyond it. That night, I dared the sea to wipe our town clean . I dared it to turn to blood. It didn't. I cursed it. I cursed me.
4.
The girl from the third street visits me often in my dreams. At first she used to perch in the space between my brain hemispheres. And when she grew bigger,  she crawled down to my heart, filling every space in it. She comes at night feeding on memories. Memories of every other girl I have come to love. She is of her father, the sea. Jealous.
5.
But she was jealous in a sweet way,  bringing that kind of pain you never want to let go, a strange security in loneliness,  in not been able to handle love. She soon grew bigger, pushing herself through my limbs. It hurts sometimes,  and I tell her. But she knows I enjoy the hurt. I soon became a walking sea-girl. I sleep most of the time,  so I could dream,  so she could visit. I would sleep while talking to people,  eating or fucking. I soon learnt how to do all of that while sleeping.
6.
I have become a sleeper. A dreamer. A sea-girl with a man's name and face and body. A ghost,  a strange kind of social silence.
 
 

​and after we washed our faces with morning prayers
-unfinished thoughts falling from our dreams-
mother reminded us that the scriptures are closed books,
the eldest, the one who death replaced papa with revolted last night
he said holy books are ongoing conversations,
they should evolve with mankind.
mother said those are vain words from godless men and then grazed his face.
our sisters wore silence
like long robes over their bodies,
they too have been taught
-to be quiet is to be a wise girl
a woman's strength is in sealed lips
a woman's mouth should hold more silence than words-
two nights ago,
our eldest called this barbaric,
mother struck him twice.
we ran into the mouth of the city,
picking relics off its teeth.
each ounce is worth half a meal
 

​So when you decide to break her body
remember she is a poet too,
she would understand why you seek darkness
to chase away the clanging darkness in your chest
do it like one walking into the sea
do it with your heart exposed -your arms wide open-
let the winds and waves wash your temple clean
go without restraint -and your clothing, and the burdens you packed along-
breathe in and out all the awe filling your lungs
 
and when you reach her,
touch her in ways that make a body shudders.
breaking her body into two unequal testament of the Trinity 's
mystery of creation (of weaving a body so delicate
and powerful,  of putting all divine forces together
in keeping her foot planted on the earth)
for she is something mystical, something gravity bows to.
 
pray words into her mouth while your tongue lies above hers
search for her hands through the dreads on her head.
hold them firm. there is a sacredness in the interlocking of fingers.
 
throb. throb.
there is healing in the clashing of thighs
there is healing in creating a new life.
it is like curating all of the magic of your ancestors
and also reaching out to the future for things
 you can't but marvel at.
life comes with healing.
 
in all, don't forget to be human.
to be violent but tender
to lick each others wounds raw
And to whisper promises
don't ever say you won't leave
sometimes lovers heal
sometimes lovers leave
sometimes lovers lose
they lose all their innocence to a broken body
to a miracle
to a new town
to a new person
 

​Like the rook’s bald face,
Kept clean of the evidence,
Hidden deep the disgrace,
Rips out the guts,
Of another race.

​They tried their best to keep us safe,
Loved and wanted, in our den.
Who could have known, the misplaced trust?
The predator was in the pen.

​I said to Dai, am I going to die?
Yes, he said, we all are……..one day.
I think I’m on my way out, I said.
In that case, said Dai,
Can you take your sister with you?

​For hundreds of years,
We roamed the mountains, free to pull
At wild moorland scrub, venturing low,
Into the white valley, as winter fell.
 
We took salt from root and peat,
Soft moss and fern made our bed,
Senses waxed, a warm mare’s flank,
Our progeny, wilful, amongst foxgloves and rock.
 
In summer, we searched, then drank,
From ancient glacial streams,
Heads lowered, sometimes too close to the adder,
Ears twitched, listening for danger.
 
Not fate, but human sanction finds me,
Bedded in a darkened box, startled, from time to time,
By a dog barking wildly, at the wind,
Stirred trees or an unseen enemy.
 
Moving quietly to a breach in the old green door,
I inhale the cool still air at dawn,
My limbs, now weak without the tension,
Of solid ground, buckle under my sorry form.
 
Dust falls gently through streams, of corn coloured
Light, pecking through the rifts,
In the cold stone walls, as I wait patiently,
For the sun to set, on these old bones.

​In the crisp starlit night
beasts run salivating.
A triumph of peril howls
a mile or two from the toy fences,
the blue timber walls of isbas
that imagine through coiffed windows
as children do, with clarity:
drawing and erasing
on the slate of space.
Cats huff and moan
among deciduous trees.
To huge soundless rivers
bare birch raise their bayonets.
When the wind blows
the stars are hard as bullets.
A silent might brands the air with tremors:
Idolatry rises to the stars,
 cruelty runs among the trees.

A sandstorm bears down on the city
a gritty vomit from Inner Mongolia
dunes borne by a Northwestern wind.
The Sino-Russian border bays like a hound.
An hour ago Spring was swaddled in blue.
Helter-skelter imperial, Maoist, modern
the urban syncretism made itself clear.
Now streets wear camouflage
traffic packs in soiled headlights
and roars like a fog horn.
Neon in tarnished stripes and medals
suggests the old martial mood while
  gray tile roofs still gestate dynastic grime.
Red strongholds arrayed in legislation
  numbed by the haze
walk their hallways timbered dark
  muffled deep in velvet.
 
Through the window’s smile  
an elusive facade across the way
replicates the grim beauty of your face
that once challenged inflexible order.
This raging gale opaque to logic
is far better for us than limbo
to dig into and curl together
with the pretense of a samovar
         and muslin curtains consenting
to the scrutiny of your Husky eyes.
 
Here comes your spacecraft:  
 phantom concrete spying
 over sidewalks vaguely lined  
like damp notepads. 
When roundabouts spin off
into the wild ire vanish
  in the murk of a place
no longer here to please
 I cannot tell by your type
broad and slim in the best parts
whether you dance or soldier with me.

​

The way to Darjeeling tells
A chaplet of burgs hung
Between reams of greenery
Piled high on both sides
As offering to bodhi’s altar.
Darjeeling, what is your meaning?


Bold terracing
Singled out trees
Domed out of sight
By birds’ treble
Discipline the monsoon’s
Diarrheal mudslides.


Card castle built on air and faith
Darjeeling juts a stubborn chin
Of embellished pediments
Over a world below
Not forgotten though
Looked down upon.


People tight rope and abseil
Between steam train and the unseen
From irreverence to sublimity.


Fog creeps and nestles
Against cottage window sills
Colonized by potted Gentians.
Near-sighted streets
Darted with roses
Bundle up, infused with the brown
Of coal fires, brewing tea,
Pashmina shawls, stray dogs,
Roof prowling macaques,
Faces square and tarred
By manliness and
The uniformed bustle
Of fluted lapels
Among a hoard of cars.
Ribboned braids, blood red lips
In the haze recall
A Hogarthian England.
There in vaulted gangways
A compound is bottled
Both cozy and sly
Of this urban puzzle
In which magic claims
Its golden due
Of menace and charm.

​Let my becoming today become me,
whether I be coming up the walk,
running down the way,
skipping stone to stone,
or standing all alone
in a river quick swept away.
Let my becoming look how today looks
to become, and so on me look becoming.
How I’d so love to be coming on,
always coming on
to the past’s oncoming drug;
past the ear echoing
empty with vacant teeming. Let
me team with a void nothing to avoid.
Let today my becoming me become. 

​I’m a burger flipping robot about
to flip out. Every fat patty
beef mooing at the moon.
Fry after fry too big for its britches.
Buns Pat Boone not white enough to gobble.
Mustard recycled mouse turd.
Tartar sauce giving me the
mechanical trots. Ketchup coming up.
Fishwich on a broom stick it up your butt.
Plastic fork my eye; white spoon rectum;
polystyrene knife in ear. Drop napkin
over satisfied corpse. Curl up lips
for a happy stiff. Notify next of
kin with a takeout grin. Now the crowd
to assault and pepper. Take out a stripper,
take out a leper, take out Jack the Ripper.
Take out, without rhyme or rhythm,
the everything-to-go al-go-rithm. I’m
a burger flipping robot about to flip out
here.

​ 
     Gunnar swung out of bed. Stumbled into the kitchen. Fed himself coffee to vacuum the cobwebs inside the head. Ate toast. Killed an egg. Downed juice. Cleared the table.
     Cleaned, oiled his piece. Snapped in a clip. Concealed the heater in a pancake over the left kidney.
     Left the pod. Boarded transit. Reported to the cube.
     Input pins. Shuffled through screens, dealing with routines both numbing and sharp with pain. Reminded himself – clicking icons, dropping boxes, selecting options, suppressing yawns of nerves – the next jerk sneers he produces the Glock, squeezes the trigger.
     Never jerk out, never jerk back. Under fire keep cool, stay smooth. To temper be – above all – no slave. Because you are, Gunnar, no jerk. This much in your bloody unbowed you know.
     No, Gunnar – no!
     

​A moth’s oath haunts the hem of my haw,
swears never again any cloth to touch,
loath either feeler in my shoes to slip.
Chet Baker along the baseboard crockpots
arpeggios nobody listens, although everybody lusts,
to. Conclude my own claim not to jump,
sixteen stories up, identical tale down,
the grass greener on the suicide of the fence –
wrought iron dotting parking strip,
cars bitsy as r’s on the Merry Xmas card to my
efficiency’s far wall tacked. Concrete sharp as
garlic stew. More than a lick
I ache not to hear, never even here
to have stood. Turn from the window
a style twilight hung before starlight clicks.
Her name in my skull Eve. We from the
together swing last night bailed,
paradise dry ice in a heatwave. It’s
Cherokee I finally see Baker cooks,
my mouth evaporating with never meant
to be. On the couch before the speaker
I slump, a note alone wholly thought. 

​ 
Nursing gin and lemonade,
toying with memory’s engine.
Why is yes minus es. Memory of
an echo in the memory echoes.
Swallows desolate the colonnade; a
distant couple’s berating
from hearing passing.   
Little boys in the shadows
spit machineguns.
A bat slices the air,
reverberating in the ear.
Stars not yet there
in the purple poise. The gears,
the worms, the shifts, the buttons
down the suit disappear. This early fall
early evening suits itself, leaves
blowing across the lawn
like leaves
blowing across the lawn,
the soul the sole remains. 

​The sorcerers and scientists
of past times
experimented with their powders
dissolved them,
fired them up
in their laboratories.
searching for the glows and gleams
from base metal,
the Midas touch
that would create the riches of gold
for them.
They never found it.
Now, the sorcerers and scientists
have discovered how
to dig deeper,
scrape harder
and stand by while
we dig and scrape for them.
And watch the gold flow,
watch it pour
like magic
making wrinkles and scars
suffocating our skin.

​It starts with one.
One skylark singing.
One Carson warning.
Then the robins and blackbirds join in.
The early birds, like Carson.
Then the wrens and warblers
as the daylight warms them.
Listen.
Can you hear them?
The warning calls are warming up as well,
strengthening their numbers
as the bird song
dies away.
Listen.
Listen.
Can you hear them?
Listen.
Don’t sleep.
Don’t wait
to hear
the silence.

​If it had been on his watch,
he would have seen,
he would have given the alarm,
would have been heard
and catastrophe would have been avoided.
She also was alert,
but it was not her watch
and no one heard her warnings.
On their watch we would have heard
the warnings.
 
But it happened on our watch
and we were sleeping.
 

​The houses are sleeping now,
lit only by moonlight.
The lights are turned off
until the dark morning.
All are tucked up cosily
under soft duvets.
Work is finished,
homework completed and forgotten,
games packed away.
All can dreaming sleepy dreams
undisturbed
till they wake tomorrow
and the new day begins to play
it’s familiar tune.
 
The houses are sleeping now,
lit only by moonlight,
smokey still from the storms of dust,
almost dark, unrelenting
darkness.
Lights out for ever.
All lying in a bed of rubble.
All finished, done,
beyond disturbing.
All dreams ended.
No waking tomorrow.
No more tomorrows
for them
as the new day plays it’s old tune.
 
The people are sleeping still
as the coins are tossed,
the dice are thrown,
the cards shuffled
and the game
of chance
resumed.
 

​Do you have a secret life,
with secret places explored
only by yourself?
Do you?
Tell me about it,
let me in.
No you can’t,
of course you can’t,
it’s a secret.
Only you can go there.
 
So I must imagine
your secret life for myself.
May I?
Perhaps a house
with another family in it.
Perhaps a box hidden
under the floor
containing
old love letters
or pornographic magazines
 
Am I getting warm?
Of course you won’t say.
Well, you can’t say.
For you are part of
my secret life.
My imaginings,
my dreams and fantasies.
And they are part of me.
As real to me as the life I expose.
but no one can go there.
They’re my secrets.
What about you?
Do you have a secret life?
Do you?

​Pat Doran is from Wexford, Ireland. The land of Saints and Scholars of which he is neither.
 His first book of poetry was published in December 2018, entitled The 50 Year Old Poet, it contains over 150 of his poems. He is already busy on his second collection.

​What if I do not wake up
in the morning?
What if it came to call without
any warning?
What would be left
in my wake?
Would people arrive to see
what they could take?
Would they be shocked to see
I was gone?
Or would they say they saw
it all along?
Would I be missed and hard
to replace?
Or is there someone waiting
to take my place?
What if I do not wake up
in the morning?
Do not weep for me, for a
new world is calling.

​Sitting alone
looking at your phone.
No messages or calls.
Just updates to install.
Scrolling through your gallery
you question your mentality.
Why have you shut yourself away?
Depressed by what others might say.
 
Put it back in the drawer
maybe check again tomorrow.
 
 

​Eyes open
but still not seeing.
Mind is full
from last nights dreaming.
Try your
best not to yawn.
Reality
has yet to dawn.
Tired from
adventures in your sleep.
You look
out the window
as a new day creeps.
Time to
get up and
face the morning,
before it hits
without warning.
 
 

​Ian Curtis,
What went wrong?
Now you are remembered
for a song.
You said that love
would never tear you apart.
Then you made
depression an art.
You were the one
who never had control.
Always destined
to play the role.
Wired for sound
and ready for transmission.
You were the genius
that created Joy Division.
Aged twenty-three,
epileptic and hectic,
you sought a way out
you thought poetic.
 
 

​A burst ballon
is beyond repair.
Sometimes I wonder
does my body compare.
When all the air
is released
the energy seems
to cease.
Lethargic and lost
I have become.
Just to end up
feeling numb.
Hard to focus
on all I have.
Instead only occupied
with the bad.
No answers
are forthcoming.
Until the do,
my mind keeps running.