80% perspiration

Delta Steel Company Ovwain-Aladja is a tale that grips the heart and makes you ponder on man's insensate actions and how it affects other men. A company built from the proceeds of the oil boom of the 80's in Nigeria, has been left, bereft and abandoned with legs splayed like a oversexed prostitute. Retired staff are dying each and everyday, their eyes ever to light on the proceeds of decades of loyal service. Facilities and utilities left abandoned. This company was a big dream of development and economic empowerment outside crude, but the relentless cruel few have thrown her into the dustbin of history. Those of us who grew up there; whose education was fostered among superb educators; whose parents had worked there, we have felt the care of the Nigerian government. Yes, they have shown us what it means to strive; we shall strive and indeed overcome. This poem is dedicated to the entire former staff, staff, including those that have passed away (May they rest in...

IT WAS A SUNDAY MORNING IN ABRAKA It was Sunday morning in Abraka, Babes still in their dirtiness Of yesterday’s play. Babes still in the nude of innocence, The nude of untutored minds. Water boils in the blackened kettle As smoke curls like Abel’s to the heavens. “Time to bathe o”, mother says, As she breastfeeds the little one. To wash in the cold blue day Was too much work for the child. Mother notices and calls out “Abigail baf am, make you dress am for church.” Little ones run around Clothed in dirtiness and innocence; Some getting ready for church, Some getting ready for play, On a Sunday morning in Abraka.

INTRODUCTION I had wanted this to be a reply to a comment on one of my poems posted on a poetry website's facebook wall. The comment had asked why my poem had no rhyme scheme; basically no end rhymes. I had wanted to explain to the dude what free verse was and how it was different from blank verse, sonnets, haiku or whatever rhyming form of poetry but while doing some research on the internet, I came across a question on free verse and a reply that grazed my brain (blood flowed; literally saw red). The dude said and I quote, "free verse is just an excuse for the writer not being able to make lines rhyme and scan. It is just manipulated prose ! You can take any piece of prose and split it into lines - but that does not make it 'poetry'."