To be called a wordsmith,
he whose verses are gradually gathering
dusts on the wooden ledge of his gloomy room?

Is a poet still a poet, dear reader, without
hitting the bull’s eye of literary journals
for donkey’s years?

Will he still be relevant like air if he keeps
going down this parched road of creative drought
twenty years after his demise?

Will he still be remembered
as he wants to be remembered:
an Iroko in the literary forest

Who hailed from the soil of the city
of tenements with brown rooves in western Africa
if his poems keep on failing to severe

the shell of literary dormancy
even in the epoch of optimum rainfall
and prompt sunshine?

Yes! to his name he already has a few
glittering publications, but will those like

an ancient fox be cunning enough to outwit
the blighting spell of time and survive till
the last sapien generation on the face of earth?

Is a poet, dear reader, still a poet
if his verses fail to pull a string
or two on the lyre of your mind?

If his words fail to herald warm
smiles to your pallid cheeks or succour
to the shore of your trembling mind?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by v2osk on Unsplash