PENMIND MEDIA & CREATIVITY

You rise like a storm from the wing Of the Northern scion, Abike, Above the arrogance Of Sahara's sordid sands, Placing your seamless elegance Atop the pride of Nature. Abike, fresher you are Than a freshly hatched dawn, Peeping out of the cracked Carapace of the night; Tenderer you are even than the Morning dew, moistening Wild spines of cactus plants. Perfect are your teeth, Abike, Perfect and stronger than several Tons of corn-cobs, smiling shyly At the competitive birds, Racing on the cardboard of the sky, Through frail openings of their raffish raffia Like an elated masquerader Behind the confidence of his comic costume. Your beautiful black skin Lends the Coal his complex complexion, Borrows the night her great garment, Under which timid nocturnal Creatures take a refreshing refuge. Abike, You are the Savannah, A heavenly haven of the Great green lemon grasses! ©Ogunyomi Israel Abidemi

Things fall apart as Akanni   Tries putting things in place; The Atmosphere becomes torturing for Adunni Seeing insanity in spiky gaze. Let him go back to think of it. Balls of thought stoning her heart Diverse question grounds turned fertile. Has he, Akanni, become a brat? Why is his self esteem this fragile? Who has untied the sword attached to your side; Left you unguarded to be robbed of your pride?. Where have you dropped your flowing garment, Is it the one you wrapped the crown with? Simple silly son sitting still On throne of Ete (embarrassment), Buckle your royal shoe And get it right with your mentor.   

The sea ate our land Leaving alone the dry shore-sand For they came with kleptomaniac hand And got hold of things in their hand For the sea ate our land. When the sea was eating our land We were afraid to raise our hand As it will make us run only errand Errand not pleasing, but White men errand For the sea truly ate our land. After the sea had eaten our land Of the field, and of the island All of us wanted to own the land But deliquesce was now our land For the sea truly ate our land. © Ikpe Comfort (Beatitude)

What else on earth could be starkly Unfathomable as the magic of a true love? It springs subtly out as an endless flow From Eden's immortal brook, Bequeathing new nutrients to The famished belly of our weary earth. It marches, mars and melts down enormous Mountains of ageless hatred like a tough troop, Crumbling the den of technical terrorists; It nurses, nourishes the stricken minds, Stabbed and choked in the lung By the daggers of depression - Tightly hugging the ghastly garment of anguish - Dumped and dejected at the Earth's irrelevant conners. It accompanies the lonely souls, Wandering, unchaperoned like a solitary cloud On the boring express of a shy sky; It strengthens the feeble bones, Weakened to the marrow by an Insufferable hammer of sickness; It mends the pain of an injured heart, Bleeding ceaselessly like a raw flesh; It acquaints several thoughts of disparage worlds, Torn and riven asunder by an ever confusing Compass of the dividing d...

What else on earth could be starkly Unfathomable as the magic of a true love? It springs subtly out as an endless flow From Eden's immortal brook, Bequeathing new nutrients to The famished belly of our weary earth. It marches, mars and melts down enormous Mountains of ageless hatred like a tough troop, Crumbling the den of technical terrorists; It nurses, nourishes the stricken minds, Stabbed and choked in the lung By the daggers of depression - Tightly hugging the ghastly garment of anguish - Dumped and dejected at the Earth's irrelevant conners. It accompanies the lonely souls, Wandering, unchaperoned like a solitary cloud On the boring express of a shy sky; It strengthens the feeble bones, Weakened to the marrow by an Insufferable hammer of sickness; It mends the pain of an injured heart, Bleeding ceaselessly like a raw flesh; It acquaints several thoughts of disparage worlds, Torn and riven asunder by an ever confusing Compass of the dividing d...

'Twas doom's day in this paradise A hot summer during winter As winter fell to summer's hell Armageddon, the birth of death . Now arch-foes share a common woe The Alpha wolf fell, fell at war Now the young cubs may never grow Death's swing, undiplomatic; raw . Terror seized peaceful Winterfell Her greatest Warrior, Winter fell A tragic story, hard to tell That day in summer, Winter fell . A tortoise's pride is in its shell Winter, pride of Winterfell; fell Woe befell the heavenly hell Gave death the chance to buy and sell . War is a tale of Winterfell Aleppo, our dear Winter fell Regrettable tale, hard to tell Since Winter fell to summer's hell ©Oladele Taiwo O. Katoonspeaks

         I The moon gathers us at the ribs of the dusk At the hut of the village, in the heart of the tales To unfold the giggling rhythm of pestles And mortal, singing; Stars danced at the façade of female chest While pounding yam at the village square, Nipples must hold the sweat Lest the fluid would poison the yam Fart not before the guard of mortal Lest the god would hold your gut, Now gathered, we were At the table of the night, dinning: With the drumstick of stubborn chicken That winked at my eyes previous night; Father’s teeth imprisoned arrogant cheetah’s limbs That dared his trap in the farm; Mother un-earth the heart of the whale That licked her bowls while fetching. Vegetable wore the garment sewed by the oil Aroma lifted hampers of locus beans The garlic of soup, the belle of taste Here with our chortles eyes, Morsels skated in the boulevard of our throats.       ...

         I The moon gathers us at the ribs of the dusk At the hut of the village, in the heart of the tales To unfold the giggling rhythm of pestles And mortal, singing; Stars danced at the façade of female chest While pounding yam at the village square, Nipples must hold the sweat Lest the fluid would poison the yam Fart not before the guard of mortal Lest the god would hold your gut, Now gathered, we were At the table of the night, dinning: With the drumstick of stubborn chicken That winked at my eyes previous night; Father’s teeth imprisoned arrogant cheetah’s limbs That dared his trap in the farm; Mother un-earth the heart of the whale That licked her bowls while fetching. Vegetable wore the garment sewed by the oil Aroma lifted hampers of locus beans The garlic of soup, the belle of taste Here with our chortles eyes, Morsels skated in the boulevard of our throats.       ...

 I never saw or experienced poverty as a child Until I was fully grown and entered the real life The world I see now is filled with hunger and pains People work so hard but cannot really buy much A mother even finds it difficult, feeding her child She wakes up every morning not knowing how to survive But believes in her strength, a bit of luck and a heart filled with faith That there will always be a helper passing through her place I see too, many, in darkness just waiting to be brought to light They believe at the end of a tunnel, there's a promise of light My question today is 'will there ever be a light?' Will parents be able to feed their hungry children and so stop the cries? Will the pain ever stop, knowing there's so much poverty going round? So today I command you O spirit of poverty Off you go into the forest and never try to return Let there be abundance of honey, milk and more Let all be happy and be filled with j...

Shed no tears, my love; This darkness is just but a while. While it off, until a bare dawn Flips away the beauty of her ugliness, Soaked and soften to earth in an indigo Of depression, and swaddles your head In turbans of hope; While it off: it wouldn't last. Let my warm arms sing your lullaby, Deny your pretty skull, All relics of sad memories Hanging heavy cosmetics of sorrow Upon the crescent of your brave brow Let the blanket of the stars hide your tears, And the petals of hibiscus be your dreams. While it off: it wouldn't last. 

The Swedish Academy has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Recall that Prof. Wole Soyinka won this prize in 1986 and was regarded as the first African to win the prize since its inception in 1901. Bob Dylan, 75, has been announced as the new Nobel Laureate, 2016. Read his biography culled from Nobel Prize Facebook Page. Bob Dylan   was born on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. He grew up in a Jewish middle-class family in the city of Hibbing. As a teenager he played in various bands and with time his interest in music deepened, with a particular passion for American folk music and blues. One of his idols was the folk singer Woody Guthrie. He was also influenced by the early authors of the Beat Generation, as well as by modernist poets. Dylan moved to New York in 1961 and began to perform in clubs and cafés in Greenwich Village. He met the record produ...

Colour...  Somewhere around the globe  Our colours could be felt from our lobe  Like a shining coal  Beauty breaths in our skin  Have no reasons to linger to peep at our looks  Evidence lies in the sky  In between the cloud, our colour, obvious,  We are AFRICANS. Through our blood, agility runs In our muscles, courage dwells Our eyes sing more of hopes than hopelessness Only if you could penetrate through Our elastic inelastic heart, A peaceful home for love Yes! We are AFRICANS. In folktales, we draw our lessons Within which life teaches us thoughts Indisputable thoughts meant to be taught Thoughts flaming from granny's grey hair In our circle gathering we captured granny's thoughts oozing out from folktales Our shadows caved in between lightning moon Till sleep knocks the door to our eyes WE ARE AFRICANS.  

Get a comprehensive note on couplet, teaching you how to write couplet in poetry with perfect end rhyme and internal rhyme and make your poem musical. The author says that there has been an increasing stirring in his spirit to put pen to paper and make an attempt to address the persistent failure of many great minds he knows, to fully understand the potential of what is the simplest and most efficient tool in modern day poetry, which has led to the inability of many to construct it, thereby resulting in the composite inadequacies of most rhyming poetry pieces For every complete structure, several pieces (units/cells/atoms/blocks/monomers) come to party in unity to present the property properly and beautifully. In poetry we have such units, a variation of kin, forming one perfect clan. Lines, stanza, rhymes, literary devices (figures of speech, idiomatic expressions), poetic devices, feet (syllables) for structures  CLICK HERE TO GET THE PDF

Carve it in lines, Not in marble; Sceptre of letters, Shaper of worlds. Paint it in gold, Not in silver; Sculpture of the sun, Giver of light. Keep it yet aflight, O spirits of winds, This dove of peace Must never be caged. Quench but not, blower of air, This flaming fire, insight of truth.  (For prof. Segun Adekoya) 

Oluronbi the greatest warrior!!! Sudden disappearance of your appearance Reasons why our happiness dwells in sadness Which we could sight you from the unsighted world  The world we read could be heaven or hell. Tears roll out drums... A natural talking drum for the grief Lions roared from the den An unusual sound from the jungle The silent gun powder wept A rare sound from the silent noisy gun Trees dropped the early morning dew in pains Silence oozed out from the birds nest Then we realized that a warrior had shut the door to his eyes. Your battalions wailed out in sorrow As your medals stood still for decorum We couldn't go beyond the six feet This is the last junction Where we have to drop our salutation Remember we are the living dead Expect us be it soon or later... Eat not the warm but the common food in the non-appearance world. Oluronbi the greatest warrior!!!

Submit your popular fiction by October 14 for a chance at big money and major exposure! Enter the competition that celebrates short stories in today's most popular genres—the 12th Annual  Writer's Digest Popular Fiction Awards ! The Early-Bird deadline has passed, but you still have a chance at the Grand Prize:  $2,500 cash, a trip to the Writer's Digest Annual Conference, a feature in the May/June 2017 issue of  Writer's Digest  and more! Step one is to enter in any or all of these categories: ·   Mystery/Crime ·   Horror ·   Romance ·   Science-Fiction/Fantasy ·   Thriller/Suspense ·   Young Adult Don't forget—entries must be 4,000 words or fewer. There's plenty to win, a half-dozen categories to choose, but only a little time left to enter before the deadline.  Get your fiction read—enter today! ...

We would fight our war tomorrow After the skies would have mellowed The anger of the earth. So when we start, Ancient skulls in the omasum Of the earth could feel The rhythms of our marching feet. Harken, O ye gore-thirsty warriors, Hankering here and there To grab the tail of revenge; Let your palms be on the necks of your foes, And your firm feet make a complex compact with the earth, So she dodges not your ebullience her cheerful chest. Raise an emissary to those on the other side, Olakaaye; that the night is older than the moon. Tell them to tell their children, Dead millipedes make cheap rings On the fingers of the earth; And their children, their children, Vultures, young or old, are all baldish.

Merchants of death successfully traded with our lives And bagged home the profit of doom Fetching their thrills from tributaries of our tears  There in their pouch, the stranded peace Thrived in the basket of rift Allying with eyebrow of the sky To hoard the goods of peace in arsenal of chaos. Yet we bargained our souls with the risk of cleft And bought home the peppery morsels of bombs. Vanishing the pen in our hearts! Lynching the glow of our sun! Dried,  the milk of our mother’s breasts F-a-l-l-e-n,  the hand  to beat  our chest Strangers here at home, Natives there in exile…   

On an aquatic baptism, Into a porous, cold coal, A monolithic ember transmogrifies, To tranquillize the father’s earth From a pertinacious terror of war, Consuming the legend’s land like A mad inferno. Slaughtered!  The pillar of valour, An eye, a nut – an eye, a bean, On a mother’s advent – a reluctant Fulfillment of a previously avowed ransom To the gods for the safe return. (It was inspired by SégunAkinlolú’s (Beautiful Nubia) ‘Imoremi’. It is a historical poem evocating the scarification of Olúorogbo, ’Móremí’s only son to the gods, according to her vow that if she was successfully enslaved by the enemies, and was able to deliver the ancient town of Ile-Ife from the incessant attack of their enemies, and return safely home afterwards, she was going to sacrifice her only son, Olúorogbo, as a ransom for the gods’ favour. She did it!)

. Pawn to pawn, Knight on Knight Send the legion out to fight Veteran general on call All trees in the path must fall . Thrust spears, swing swords, shoot shots, blow bombs Tonight we sleep in bunks, our enemies in tombs Bring gold, take spoils, seize wives, slave men Today we slay the lion in its own den . Bank of cow heads for their King, live or dead Roast me him, his flesh, in his skull, serve Mead Grow crops in his chambers and bush in his garden Mute his loud halls, no decibel of din . The commander's strategy never fails But today his ship is doomed, rigs and sails His glory shamed, his pleasures pained His sacrosanct apparel stained . Slayers slain, reapers reaped The vultures had a feast and hyennas partied I, the general played god on a console Haunted I am by the  lost souls . Soldiers are bullets from a gismo gun Where he's sent, there he's gone Obeys the last order, suicide or murder Leaves son, daughter, wife and mother © Olad...

As Nigeria becomes a year older today, my bone of contention is not the evaluation of  the  level of social and political development in Nigeria but to raise an alarm of the war looming in Nigerian higher institutions for the world to justify when the tempest resort into a full scale of disaster. It's conspicuous and generally acceptable for the unbiased minds that Nigeria at 56- years of today is an emblem of a failed state. A state which has broken a million hearts to satisfy the desire of a hundred, a cruel state which has sent many into slavery before they were born, a state where the song of sorrow is roared under the boulevard of misery, the clime where l belong to by birth has made my people homeless, visionless, mission less and hopeless by impoverishing them, in my state all the opposite arrive. I am not going to be drawn into the old trap of evaluating who or what is the problem of Nigeria since the major victims are clueless and not ready to understand its prob...