ARISE, O COMPATRIOT ™
Established since 1960.
We know the anthem,
Let us rise –
like we have not been rising and nothing has changed,
even though they are shooting us dead on the streets,
even though these politicians don’t care if we eat or not,
even though these legislators call us fools,
even if the headline every morning is about fuel hike,
even though we can’t tell where this country is heading,
even though we have been looking for peace
like a mathematician looking for X,
even though we are simply dismayed,
even though our dreams are like shoes in gutters and are going nowhere,
even though those policies are like mosquitoes on our skin.
We will keep rising
Until our bones have become liquid
And we can’t stand anymore to defend our rights –
Until we are finally ghosts
That cannot fight for rights in a constitution
Obviously meant for humans.
LOOKING FOR HAPPINESS (SHOPS)
Who knows how to peel lies from the tongue
Or how to wash weighty grief from the soul?
In the dark, a wife hears her heart pour
Like the sink tap she forgot to close –
It’s a mixture of lies and fears.
She knows the man is out again sharing part of her
With strange women,
But she must not tell herself it is true.
In the morning when she goes to the grocery store
Or the Chinese restaurant down the street,
She feels everything she haggles price for is Happiness,
She feels everything she buys has a portion of Happiness beneath.
She cuts the meat gently, afraid it might be her heart.
She pours enough sugar into the pastry,
Because she knows, subconsciously, that Happiness
Ought to be sweet.
She would do this for a long time
Until she comes to a point where she must either find real Happiness
Or learn how to spoon-feed the man
With the delicacy of collected lies.
SOUNDTRACK TO A BLOOMING VIOLET
Do not hide your light under a bushel.
A song of enchantment I shall seek
To accompany the beauty behind the chaos of life.
Life’s a deciduous tree.
A tree lives, a tree dies;
A leaf falls from time to time,
Into nature’s baskets.
And ‘fore I fade and wither,
Or ‘fore I fall
On the swallowing face of the earth.
Let me fan the embers of ambition
Amidst life’s nettle leaves.
Let me fetch more timber
Amidst life’s burning needs.
Let me add more tinder
To the flames of youth.
Let me watch the flames
Burning bright and blue.
Let me keep the cinder.
Let me proceed to water my dreams,
Which when dry holds no one’s victory.
Let me sow the seeds of today which soon
Holds the hands of yesterday.
Let me do so
Until I can’t help but sing a song of victory.
The timbre of my voice
A rush of water from a broken dam.
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About
Marvel Chukwudi Pephel is a Nigerian writer who writes poems, short stories and other things besides. A graduate of Applied Biochemistry from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, he combines scientific thought with literary art. In 2021, he was invited to the Sixth Chinua Achebe Literary Festival. His poem “Ogene” appeared on 10, 000 socks printed in Sweden which resulted from a collaboration launched as a project to tell African stories through socks. Apart from literary art, he has a keen interest in artworks (especially the works of Salvador Dali). He is the author of I, Robert’s Robot and Other Stories.
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