54 | The Lion King
Poetry
WHAT WOMEN WANT
Excerpts from a poem com-
posed by Malora Fernandes
(2008)
We want to be cherished
Thought of as wise
A compliment from you
Will be really nice.
Treat us sweet
Treat us kind
Treat us like Queens
We don’t mind!
Be nice to a lady
For how lovely she is
Her smile & her warmth
Is one you will miss.
Buy her some flowers
A trinket or two
A bar of chocolate
And she’s closer to you.
A call in the day
‘Hi! How do you do?’
A hug in the night
To say ‘I love you’
Hold our hand
Please, make us laugh
Listen to our woes
They will divide by half
Let me end my rambling
Let me stop this jaunt
I have answered the question
Of what women want!
ROUNDTABLE
By Prince Ayewoh
Temperaments, capacities, competencies,
expertise, specialities, idiosyncrasies
Huddled together for purposes, yet indistinct
Mutual distrust agog as eyes peer and pore into
dark recesses
Seeking to unravel the mysteries of the man
TOMORROW
By Muyideen Adeleke Ayinla
If today is helpless
What will tomorrow be?
If tears do wet the sands today
Will tomorrow remember the eyes from
which they dropped?
If today makes us convicts,
Will tomorrow set us free?
If the night seems so long
And anxiety on our paths do throng,
Will tomorrow bring reasons to smile?
If we waited this long today
But tomorrow never comes,
Will it remember us for our perseverance?
If daylight stood still
And the night seeks its fill,
Will tomorrow ask why today took so long?
Today is all we see
Bringing yesterday’s burden along;
An unfinished love song,
And a right that went wrong.
So what will tomorrow be?
Will it be just we humans Cycling-by
On sloppy hills and in factory mills,
Or another moment for-
Feeble travellers to sail home?
Will tomorrow be another discovery
Or a test of human bravery?
Will it bring us glad tidings
Or just another day to reflect on our being?
Tomorrow is our worries
It is a time we recount yesterday’s stories.
Today tomorrow will be yesterday
And tomorrow it will be today.
WE COME TOGETHER
By Emmanuel Okofu
We come together
from different tribes
with all we have
We come together
with all our might
We have the right; we
fight to see the light
Together we come
because we want a
life
With all our heart
we drop all vice and
pride
To ride and fly high
and fast
We visualize, we
vocalize, we rub
minds,
We analyse and
realize with one voice
We have the choice
to create a heaven on
earth
Because we come
together.
We are united in our
dreams and goals,
We are united globally
We are United Bank
for Africa
Agenda tabled, raising more questions, more
motives
Silence ensues, wrapped in uncanny strategic
and calculative contemplation
The atmosphere is foreboding and getting more
sinister by the minute
Daring and audacity, is high in demand, to
unearth the man
Seared consciences, tutelage and awash with
base and debased origins and sensibilities
Sadly saddled with the onerous responsibility of
representation
Paths trodden, suffused with deceit, bloodshed,
and sadistic empathy, laced with futuristic
emptiness.
Quality of the man, either depleted or
harangued into unquiet submission
Truth, be unearthed, I am the bold, with one
mission
Recoup, I must. Empowered, I must. Status quo,
with vigour, we must entrench, Welcome!
Myriads of generational hopes, continuously
and audaciously frittered. Integrity, flagrantly
and incessantly, murdered
A roundtable of Comrades, and ancient
camaraderie, with the unabashed code of
avarice, WHICH WAY!!
