AT THE CROSSROADS OF TIME ( a duet )

AT THE CROSSROADS OF TIME

A duet by Ifiokobong Etuk and Artitude

IFIOKOBONG

Dear future self

I know you're living the life that was a dream the day I wrote this

With my eyes closed and my mind wandering and time traveling

I wrote this so that one day, you'll get the chance of hearing from your younger self

And have the rare opportunity of knowing your past didn't die to time.

I know you've grown to become the big picture I used to paint with words

But the imagery I wish to create with this

Is that of when the canvas you now live in was still blank

Before muse turned you into the Da Vinci of words you now are.

I hope you now sit to dine and wine

On the table discussion of men whenever they talk about legends 

And remember how the art became a potion

That you drank and became immortal 

Living forever on every page that met your Ink.

The day I wrote this

I was young, living in the solid reality of a present that is a past for you

You were in the future that was promising but never promised

A sacred mountain top in the wild of my imagination

That I wished to reach someday.

On the day you'll read this

You will be the solid reality

And this will be just another piece of time from the past

And I will be nothing but a liquid memory blended in nostalgic wine.

I write this to remind of your days of small beginning

Of when you wrote your emotions in small verses

Of when you were just another poet a nobody knew of

Of when your rhymes were too primary to wow kids

Of when your puns were not playful as intended

Of the time that was before the world knew your name

So when you read this

You'll sure have reasons

To propose a toast to the victory journey your life has become.

ARTITUDE

Dear Younger Self

I found your letter between the pile of books you buried it 

And to realize I was once you, makes me miss you so much.

Life is much more crazier than you envisaged. 

There are no big pictures, just big words. 

Don't get me wrong, I've connected every dot you wrote 

but the imagery is still a faux.

And Yes, 

I'm big now but more like a lonely elephant stuck in a pile of poop.

And, fame is just a popular thief that sticks a gun in your mouth

Forcing you to give up your right to a private life. 

There are no legends here; 

Not even me 

Expect for the bottle of chill drink that made it to the new era. 

There are nights I drink myself to bed 

And when these folks speak to me about legends, 

I just think about the liquor that sleeps in my tummy.

I think, I understand why they all call me legend and with the same breathe

Ask me to buy them a bottle of drink.

I miss you;

I miss when words had true meaning

And fame didn't know my address.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

  (KING of the QUILL)

© ARTITUDE JOR

ONCE UPON A CHILDHOOD

ONCE UPON A CHILDHOOD

Happy and cheerful souls we were, without a problem in the world
Like Kola, we broke the day with prayers and smiles
And like flowers, we folded asleep at night.

To grown up folks, we were just kids
Playing and rolling in the sand
And seeking to catch a butterfly by hand

But to ourselves, we knew we were kings
Ruling over the ambitions we nursed for the future
Without the fear of fate and it's doings

We worried about little things
Like how the siy got the lovely rainbow
And how the tortoise cracked it's shell

But slowly. Very slowly, without notice
The waters of time dissolved the solid reality pf the present
Until it became a liquid memory

And now
When we talk about childhood
We drink from the chalice of nostalgia


© Ifiokobong Etuk
  (KING of the QUILL)

Dear Lover series (2)

DEAR LOVER

It's my funeral already

So let's make a cake

That's what lovers do right?

The cemetery will make a good kitchen

A countless shovelfulls of sand 

A wooden rectangular cake pan

The earth will be the oven

And my carcass the dough

The real cake is me 

Six feet deep 

Meanwhile

My tombstone is just a well designed icing

Leaving sweet memories for my mourners.

DEAR LOVER...

I'm at the gate of heaven

God asked me to describe the mortal that sent me here

So I'll do it in just two lines

I tell him you are so handsome that his Angels would fall for you

But if hell had half the darkness in your heart, the devil would repent.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

  ( KING of the QUILL )

Dear Lover series

POISON

The love you gave me was poison
Killing my senses and blinding my thinking
So I fell dead over your lifeless Love

I died slowly and sweetly
On the arms of my killer
Because he was dressed in the costume of a lover

I got know too late
That there's nothing like a love portion
It's just poison in a well told lie for a vial.

DEAR LOVER

Our love was never a table top
I was never good in economics of the heart so
Equilibrium was absent

Our love was a see-saw
One up and the other down
You were up on your mistress
On the heights of her moans

I was down

Thinking deep
Until I got a head shot
From a bottle of snipper

So let this poem show the structure of our love
In unequal verses

© Ifiokobong Etuk

 (KING of the QUILL)

Picture Credit: Internet

❤️

❤️

A hand to hold 

A heart to love

A lip to kiss

A heaven to feel

I'm not falling

Just flying

On the wings of love

Surfing the air in wonderland

This feeling

Is what Neil Amstrong felt

When he walked the moon

Wheightless, love defies gravity

Don't wake me up

If this is a dream

I want to sleep and forever will be too short.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

( KING of the QUILL )

WHO I WANT TO BE

WHO I WANT TO BE

It was the last day at highschool
I remember clearly the colourful canopies and drinks that were cool
We were asked a question
One that left every man for himself to wonder about his destination
My classmates...
Some said they wanted to be doctors
Lawyers, policemen, scientist, teachers, and every other thing the African parent would be proud of
I was lost
And when the time came for me to speak, I said what the crowd never loved

I told them who I wanted to be
I said I never wanted to be just some name on my employers pay book
I never wanted to be that old man that lives down the street
And at seventy the only thing you could boast of is the monthly paychecks I've cashed
Living in an old house, driving a car decaying from decades of use because I can't get a new one
I don't want to just live and die with only my tombstone to immortalize me
You see naked I came to the world but I promise to leave my legacies in a lovely linen


I wanted to be that man
Who would get to the mall and a stranger stops me saying
I was touched and impacted by your words
I want to be that man that brings my countrymen together through the most beautiful of lines
I want to be that voice that spoke life and inspiration into a brother that was once lost
I want to be that African voice that makes the black man proud to wear his skin
I want to be that person that personified poetry into his own person

You see dreams are different and no two men have the same destiny is now a cliche
But like it sounds, mine was different
I wasn't sent to the world to sit behind a desk a give prescriptions
Neither was I sent to talk a save a man from jail in my jurisdiction
I didn't come to earth to wield the rifle, or play in the lab nor give and mark classworks
My mission was separate and because I followed it doesn't make me less
I mean less of my classmates leaving the academy with one star on their shoulders

My calling is in the ministry of words
And anytime my human nature feels too lazy to do this
My guilt makes me pick my pen to write down the pains I feel so you could feel better
So I try to contribute every metre to fill up these vacuums we have in the world today

I want to be that old man
Sitting with a lot of smiles and grey hair
In a world of the Future
One I helped to build
As a parting gift to my children and generations unborn
So they'll come to know
Of a poet who wrote his name on the pages of forever

That's who I want to be.

© Ifiokobong Etuk
(KING of the QUILL)