Kisses of a Chameleon: A Collection of Poems
Kisses of a Chameleon: A Collection of Poems
- Jacob Deladem Elikem
- 633-673
- Jun 11, 2024
- Education
Kisses of a Chameleon: A Collection of Poems
Jacob Deladem Elikem
St. Francis College of Education (Administrative Assistant), University of Education, Winneba- Hohoe Study Centre (Assistant Lecturer)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2024.1105041
Received: 25 April 2024; Revised: 08 May 2024; Accepted: 13 May 2024; Published: 11 June 2024
ABSTRACT
The events of life unfold. Many of the life’s issues are outside the scope of man’s ability to control while others are controllable. In all situations, one thing remains common- how the stories are told. Storytelling, songs, drama are but a few ways to carry the issues of a generation to the other. Kisses of a chameleon: a collection of poems is a rich outpour of original poems written to portray general life issues. These poems are a reflection of the writer’s environment and seeks to carry the reader on a journey across the ‘oceans of life’.Though a marketing professional, the writer is blessed with a natural talent of writing poems, oratory, Kente weaving, among others. Reading through these poems will take your mind to the writer’s African setting while speaking to some issues on the global seen in poetic language.
Keywords: Poetry. Love. Father. Africa.
INTRODUCTION
- Topic: Songs of The Night Bird
Cogitations of heavy Kilograms,
Insomnia from dawn to dust.
Few decades of life’s torture.
A friend to share, a microphone to public.
How do I carry ‘me’ through the next decades!
I want to share a part of me.
They call me too introverted
They say, share to free your mind
They advise that it’s unhealthy to be silent
They show me stats of the insane
But who made me who I am?
Who shut me in my shells?
I want to share a part of me.
The judgement of the ‘righteous’
The ridicule of the ‘smart’
The blame game of ‘my kind’
The street signage of my past shared stories…
Like walls of stones
Shut me in my shell,
No matter how much
I want to share a part of me.
- Topic: Efforts and Choices
Before dawn, I read You
By noon I need You.
Seems I can’t have enough of You
My world revolves around a planet called You
I kill myself, just so I can have You
But my efforts and your choices.
I want to pull the strings
And test your stay
I want to sting your skin
And try your tears
It seems like a one-way traffic
Because your choices defy my efforts.
I stay long hours, longing your efforts
Praying You’ll choose Me
But my wait awaits forever
Your wings take you far away
Your paths parallel mine
My efforts, though all I can give
Never seem to win your choices.
If forever never comes
It is your choices against my efforts.
- Topic: Irony of love
I only wanted you to be happy
I wanted us to experience a deep part of each other…
I didn’t realize I was giving away a part of me I will never get back
I didn’t know the sour cream on the cake tasted bitter
I didn’t understand love hurts.
I thought it was all juice from the sweetest source.
May I curse the day I gave out that part of me?
May I hold on to the pain and hurt and regret?
May I keep it in memory and speak to Kudzo, my son about it?
That I gave a precious jewel to a pig…
That I placed a gold chain around the neck of a swine that trampled it under feet…
That I gave the right part of me, with the purest intentions, to the wrong person…
Love is hurt.
- Topic: Adam’s Eve
I know her
I know she is not perfect
I understand she will disappoint me at some point
She is a ‘weaker’ man with a womb
I seek no perfection!
The creator made her ‘help mate’
Not much she can carry
I know her…
The generation has messed up many
Loud ignorant ‘mentors’ corrupted her thinking
Her innocence was abused by my kind
She walks, a wounded lamb…
I know her.
No doubt about her ability
She is brave and intelligent
Give her the oil
She is born with an inner strength to ‘anoint’ her home
The builder! The reformer! The iron that sharpens.
I seek her
Sometimes in the wrong bodies
I desire her
Many a time at the wrong places
I search for her, at times, with the wrong motives
But I need her
The best nature can give me
I long for an anointing
Only her love can give.
- Topic: The Burnt Pages
I hid me
In the ‘dusts’ of duty
Under the shades of ‘busy-ness’
I cover me with religious rituals.
The true me,
A page I wish was never written.
The real me, is a scene I pray is ‘deletable’.
Society disdains my kind
Religion writes off my type
I hate a part of me
My left hand, unwilling to touch the right hand
My cruel dirty yesterday,
Soils my tomorrow, today.
At dawn I smile to the world
At dust I soil my pillows
So yes!
I shut me in
I cover up
I hid me….
So the burnt pages are never read.
- Topic: The Puzzled Lizard
I’m puzzled
But not perplexed
Wondering…
Why life swings on a wheel
With so much shifts of shits.
Why days of love
Have many deals of lies.
I’m lost in thoughts
Why a language of the gods
Is abused yet ‘revengeless’?
Ego, frustration, selfishness and ingratitude,
Are but few of the lots
In the busket of ‘love’.
I chose a pearl…
Broke it, dusted it with sand
I pushed it away
It goes to refine itself
I want it back.
Cruel me…!
May the gods purge my hands.
May the east wind, blow me wisdom.
But roses indeed have thorns
They appeal to the eyes of the blind
But prick with no mercy.
The ancestors may have called it rose
And not love…
It’s fragile beyond the care of the careless.
- Topic: The Later Glory!
She is like a flower
The favor