Contributor: Ayoola Goodness Olanrewaju

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Yesterdays bloat with hays
Hays once green in the rays of the sun god of yesterdays
Past present stench of wars stains the peace of nostrils
Nostrils that desire sweet aroma from the meals of the past
Regrets mock at us with teeth of ancient days in grey coats
Coats soaked in the unceasing drools of froward regrets.

Democracy bears us yesterdays of still stillborns
Stillborns of agony in the deception of a dark democracy
Regressions flaunt over our failed brows of forwardness
Forwardness from chains of the blacksmith of regressions
Ours is the tale of the baskets tears of harvests
Harvests infested with weevils of the bigger ‘ours’.

Cursed be the paradoxes of peace
Peace that clamours entry in fisted wars be cursed!
For the mothers are done with tears, they shed bloods
Bloods of vanished hopes, sons and suns uncared for
How shall I sing and dance to these stringed rhythms of sorrows?
Sorrows in the cosmetics of constant groans and pains, how?

The young maidens are now beasts; martyrs of dooms
Dooms in apostles’ clothes mumbling the
Deadly prayers to become celebrated angels
Angels of darkness in shells’ straps beeping deadly
And again for many years passed, our nurture is yet within
Within the confinement of haunted past in ghostly scars and...

Tears of hapless hopeless dying hopes
Hopes drowned in the libation of unceasing tears
Freedom fleets in bruises across the borders of thorns
Thorns sprouted from the decayed residues of failed freedom.
Tarrying, we hope on for the time that changes yesterdays
Yesterdays redeemed by bright mornings and absence of tarrying.


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Ayoola Goodness Lanre is a teacher of English and a poet.