Caesar’s Antics

An Original Poem by

Diana Benskin

Copyright@Diana Benskin

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar is fiddling

Heads of State at loggerheads debating

And his Cabinet staff continue resigning

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar keeps fiddling

The democracy he is not saving

From the brink of collapsing

 

Caesar’s leadership skills are not emerging

While Rome is continually crumbling

Another is tactfully recruiting

Those Romans whose skill is inventing

 

Rome’s citizens are protesting

Their cries Caesar is ignoring

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar is demanding

A show of military might Parading

And to the South a wall he will be building

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar is rendered powerless as he is fiddling

By force or will Romans are exiting

An orchestrated purging

Caesar’s wish for ethnic cleansing

 

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar does what he  is best at, fiddling

The  coffers are no longer brimming

Rome once perched high, now a downward slope spiraling

 

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar pouts as he is fiddling

The world is watching

The Romans for Caesar’s impeachment they are calling

But at the throne he is steadfastly remaining

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar has ramped up his fiddling

New laws he is implementing

Tactfully the once United Rome he is slowly dividing

To conquer and rule he will be winning

 

Romans arise and in Unity Resist!

To conquer Caesar we must persist

Get up Stand up and profoundly insist

This tyranny will no longer be allowed to exist 

 

 

 

 I am an African born in the Caribbean, the eldest of my 11 Siblings. I was fortunate to end up in the custody of my maternal Uncle and maternal Grandmother after being born to an unwed immigrant mother in the Caribbean.

Under my uncle’s  loving care , I was encouraged to speak properly and was given the autonomy to explore my surroundings and to question my uncle on issues that puzzled me. I was encouraged to use my creativity and to read a lot.
The above foundation laid the premise for my inquisitive tones of my poetry and to invoke question and thought in my readers. I also seek to remind and record  readers of historical events.

At eight years old I was sexually violated by an unknown assailant, I was told that I went from being a happy go lucky girl , to an angry troublesome child. It was at this time  I was quickly  jettisoned without any reason given to me back to the care of the woman who birth me.

I no longer enjoyed the free flow of dialogue , instead all I heard was to shut up, no one wants to hear you and your ramblings. I was subjected to verbal, emotional, psychological and physical abuse from her. My mother referred to my poetry as nonsense and crazy ramblings that will amount to nothing. I was a mere child of ten years old when this was being said to me, and so I gave up documenting my thoughts on the world around me, but I retained them in my brain .

 

“Spoken words from the mouth of this Babe” is the culmination of those ramblings.   I have also written my life story, “Per Ardua Ad Astra” Latin for Through difficulty to success. The life story of one West Indian Girl.  I am currently working on releasing another Collection “Reflections, Spoken words of an African Immigrant. I am also hoping to release the first in my children’s book series The Adventures of Nugget the dog.

 

I would like to pay  tribute to my Maternal Uncle and  Grandmother,  and my inspiration for writing poetry Maya Angelou. I would also like to thank Dr. Mac for his infinite encouragement to pursue my writing, to my many friends who were my ears of approval or not when I read them my works initially. 

Special thanks to Mrs. Judith Byer who saved my life after I was stabbed by my mother  and nearly perished as a teenager. Lastly but not least to my God Mother Helen Weekes (deceased) who was an inspiring surrogate mother to me.

 

 

 

 

In the poem  below, I seek to compare the society in which I reside in today , with that of ancient Rome. As we continually witness the dysfunction played out in the USA. It will be appearing in my upcoming anthology “Reflections, Spoken words of an African Immigrant. I am one of the nominees for Author of the year under the Divas of Color 2018.

 

 

 

 

Caesar’s Antics

An Original Poem by

Diana Benskin

Copyright@Diana Benskin

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar is fiddling

Heads of State at loggerheads debating

And his Cabinet staff continue resigning

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar keeps fiddling

The democracy he is not saving

From the brink of collapsing

 

Caesar’s leadership skills are not emerging

While Rome is continually crumbling

Another is tactfully recruiting

Those Romans whose skill is inventing

 

Rome’s citizens are protesting

Their cries Caesar is ignoring

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar is demanding

A show of military might Parading

And to the South a wall he will be building

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar is rendered powerless as he is fiddling

By force or will Romans are exiting

An orchestrated purging

Caesar’s wish for ethnic cleansing

 

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar does what he  is best at, fiddling

The  coffers are no longer brimming

Rome once perched high, now a downward slope spiraling

 

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar pouts as he is fiddling

The world is watching

The Romans for Caesar’s impeachment they are calling

But at the throne he is steadfastly remaining

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar has ramped up his fiddling

New laws he is implementing

Tactfully the once United Rome he is slowly dividing

To conquer and rule he will be winning

 

Romans arise and in Unity Resist!

To conquer Caesar we must persist

Get up Stand up and profoundly insist

This tyranny will no longer be allowed to exist 

 

 

 

BREAKING NEWS
We are pleased to inform you that as part of THE FIRST EVER INTER-CULTURAL AFRICAN FESTIVAL TAKING PLACE IN BASEL, SWITZERLAND on Friday the 29th of May and Saturday the 30th of May at The Pyramiden Platz in Basel , Switzerland, we shall be honouring African Achievers in Switzerland as part of our Africa4u Awards initiative

A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to the nominees for this years Africa4u Awards for Africans in Switzerland as part of the 1st ever Inter-cultural African festival
The Nominees include :
Mr. Jegede Sunday – Jeges Sunny
Sunny jeges production Switzerland
CEO Club Lara Basel Switzerland

 

WHAT IF TOMORROW IS A MIRAGE

We’ve sheltered the seeds of man in the soil
Sprouted, that birth a head or a tail or both

We’ve leaped to sides of the folded earth
Cloaked in the garment that rise and fill larva

When the birth of man comes in the spring
We lived up like the pigs wallowing in the mud

But the death of man in the winter
The eyes grew in layers like that of a broiler

As I cudgel into this verses
I know not in the mirage of tomorrow

But Papa told me afore I was born
The hairs planted on his head
Is cocooned with black caps
Now laced with yards worn by the angels -white

And Mama has warned to be genteel
Enliven in the world saturated in flowers and woods
For not to live like the shadow
Who vowed to save its silhouette from the sun
For not to-mourn-row -Tomorrow
With columns runs from top to bottom

For the rain falls
Perhaps, the sun shines
For your fruits grow
For if tomorrow is a mirage;
The rain shall fall again
And lap your fruits on its shoulder.

©Onasgeneral

Short bio: My name is Onafowokan Taofeek. I study geography in the faculty of the social sciences ,University of Ibadan. I hail from Ogun State.

Orukoro Dancer

 “Child, weep not

Mother will be fine”

 

Still Tonye’s voice went out

Surpassingthe rolling drums

To win mother’s attention,

Her hands stretched forth

Forcing body through dense crowd

To mar mother’s drunken steps,

She, solitary Lass, soaked with her tears,

Weaved a cry:

“Mother! Mother!

What have they done to you mother!?

It’s me your daughter!

Come!Come homeward!”

But all were health tips for pigs.

 

Dancer, canoe to the unseen paddler

Dancer, slave to the spiritual native banter

Feet, chalk-patterned by her painter

Body, clad with white and red George-wrapper,

Dancedforward, danced backward,

Danced drummers-ward, danced viewers-ward,

Danced, Shell to her marine partner

Dancedshe, beats after beats,songs after songs,

Swung,palm leaves at wind’s gate.

Ah! Severalfresh eggs went lost to her belly.

Then I replaced the soil on my soles with another

Weaving pity in my heart

Pity for viewers, lostin spirit’s huddle

Spirits who seek for more canoes to paddle.

 

By Fubaraibi Anari Benstowe

 

 

 

Note:

Orukoro dancers are women who dance to certain drumbeats under the influence of a marine spirit, at these times, songs and drums are played by members of their Orukoro society. Viewers usually come out in their numbers to witness the dance-steps.The word Orukoro means the coming down of a deity, In this case it is usually the marine deity that possesses a person.

The Orukoro societiesare worshippers of marine deities in many Ijaw communities in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States of Nigeria.

 

 

 

the taste of our names

regardless of what the sun’s puissant ray
may tell you of the taste of my flesh,
i am not an emissary who curbs war
and revolts with waves of abandon, bartering
my blackness for packs of bribes
that comes in prayers & eulogies of twelve religions.

rather, i am the name of a man battered
by the harsh whispers of spite, by an eloquence
of lawyers whose tongues are mapped
by geographies of success, globes shaped
like adam’s apple (literally).

i am the ash on sidi bouzid, searching
for the arabic nomenclature for scream, the
tiny providence on the lips of tunisians
that will just say bouazizi.

i am the drowned ghosts of refugees, the
one-minute silences invented by daughters
who only hear about their fathers on confessions
by pirates smooching wooden crosses.
I am the soft natter of juveniles,
the erratic swirl of chibok’s gospels, riding
on the scent of betrayal from judas’ kiss.
 
i do not have the algorithms to night’s tempest shades,
millenniums crumbling into fragments of decay.
but, this is how i thwart pain, by recounting
the jaded edges of our ancestry with songs,
unmaking chaos.

 

immigrant

home.

 

i have always beaten my skin for you. dug my bones

for the fatness of foxes. but what do i get

from you? deprivation.

 

a thin solace—

too small to make a room for my house.

 

it is true you cannot boast of renewal. no.

not

until you are able to wear your country in

every place without shame.

 

my country is disabled.

 

mother reads my poems. she says. i am a

perpetual purpose.

 

obsessed. too obsessed with renewal.

 

maybe she is right. like importunity— i have over-worn like tide.

will the coast give way? beforei return to myself.

 

i am in a bus. faces. abidjan.

 

patriotic. &french.

 

laughter too. they like my english. not my skin.

they laugh. & needles. my body bleeds. a lass smells

my country from my hair. she touches it like rabies.

 

i crawl into my skin. anger seethes beneath.

it is in my language. i cannot tell it. they will laugh

more.

 

ca va ici. i de

scend.

 

their laughter pushes me down. like

they are not black too.

 

i am angry that my country pushes me here. i am angry

thati cannot wear my country with pride—

that my country is disabled. i am angry that

 

i am another boy. away from home.

 

 

Ayoola Goodness

A soul with no hair!
There in the emptiness…!
There i left my soul with its shirt!
There i left the flame of my own dreams,together
With the embers of love
There,where my youth faded away
There in the smell of withered roses
among sprouts that are dead before they are born
amid the vehemence of youth
There,where the eyes have anothere function
There wherethe heart is driving like a mad
There where the braids of hairless soul are woven
and my man’s hair is uncombed…!

 

OUR FAIRY-TALE

Scintillating sensations of black morsels coated white
Rained on us from the golden garden assembled above.

Our fairy-tale,
A massive merriment in mournful moment,
Form days past to present days taken aback,
Beyond the boundary where they took the torque.

These celebrated clichés.
Chose to look and not see,
As rhythm of starvation swept though this sphere.
Many jiggling and swaying,
With eyes drenched with salty rain.
And more,readily enrobed
To jiggle and sway harder and tougher.

They listen with their lips not lobes,
As echoes of sorrow rushed through the canal of the listening lump,
For a romance with the heart of many.
More heart, waiting to be wooed,
Sorrow, a polygamous soul-mate.

They festival with pretence,
Even when the soil had changed robe
And sparked in red.
The atmosphere changed aroma,
Stained with the scent of the red stream,
Flowing through the veins of many.

They prepare for another season of sharing
To conquer at the altar of thumbs,
Having grace the land with hunger and thirst.

BIO

Paul Abiola Oku-ola is a Nigerian Engineer turned writer.

SCENT OF A WOMAN

dreched
In fragrance of her sprout smiles
pouring forth, pouring forth
drenched
in mine and in time
she looks as a sight
mirroring
a new world

her sun surrounds me
invading
my tent

that I do not need more
salvation
I have found a religion in her eyes

link:
Twitter: @felzzygreen
Facebook.com/felix.o.sylvanus

Standing at the horizons gazing at her flora and fauna.
We see Nigeria, emerging from beyond the various shades of colours,
We see Nigeria soaked in the lovely aroma of cooking dishes
Beautiful in her wrap, encircling her abundant children, we see Nigeria.
We see Nigeria serving both as their jury and defendant.
With hearts thumping and beating to the thuds on the pitch
We see Nigeria as she plays to the delightful roar of the crowd.
We see her materialize in the sight of her unbiased spectators.
Uniting a nation when the trembling net receives her goal.
We see Nigeria entrenched in brotherhood and friendship.
Watching from a distance,
We see Nigeria, her myth shaping her history.
We see Nigeria, baring her toothless gum, with promises of a better tomorrow.
We see Nigeria, laughter, her only cure for a grieving yesterday.
While she fascinates over the imagination of a glorious future.
We see Nigeria celebrating her greener country sides
Lost in the Mirage of an identity,
We see Nigeria brandishing both past and future heroes,
Like a tree without its roots,
We see Nigeria struggling to remember her ancient landmarks.
We see Nigeria find her way back to glory!