The Heartbreak Diary

by Tito O'tobi

  Sonnet XV – Love Strong, Love Strung

  Sinuous flow of strength that cursed my arms

  When I sweetly carried her in my arms

  Sweet, sultry, succulent lips that plant smooth kisses on me

  Silky and fine were the threads of her touch on me

  They were the threads that knit the very fragments of me

  Weaving from soul to heart and heart to soul, my very being

  The very emotional core of me, slick and soft and fluid

  Yet forming the tough fabric of my strength that moved mountains

  Sinister sister with the fiery heart hands that wove silk

  The flare of which would set the very sun ablaze.

  Magma coursed through the veins of her very soft hands.

  She is woman – nature’s delicately disguised explosive.

  Her silken passions throbbed my very core’s strings,

  Slickly slicing my steel veins and consuming men.

  Sonnet XVI – Love’s Death Note

  In ink I wrote

  My first love note

  With a wild heart

  Twas my freedom

  From kidshackles.

  I gave it her

  Bold shamefacedly

  With sacredly.

  That tongue from her

  Without remorse

  Broke my wisdom

  And without heart

  In blood, she wrote

  My own death note.

  Sonnet XVII – Kiss from a Rose

  She springs out on a warm spring day

  And it’s the reason you always love spring

  Scents and fragrances that fill your senses

  She only gives red roses, they’re her favourite

  She has a garden full of them; that’s what she says

  Red roses, red lip paint, red dresses

  It’s what red passion she has in her veins

  And so she kissed you, her fangs dug deep

  The red that flowed, your whiteness stained

  Unceasing fount from the red lip stains

  Whose weakening power you never knew

  Until it’s cold numbness felt like the grave

  And its drop, it poisoned your heart

  To slap the one that gave you birth.

  Sonnet XVIII – Black Beauty (The Nation I Loved)

  There was once a time

  When your black skin was soft on my touch

  I loved the course of the tears on your face

  When your cry sent sweet streams that melted my heart

  The sweeter part of love that flowed from your two eyes

  Soothed all that loved you and showed it

  But recently, your tears have turned sour and red

  Your breasts have killed sucking infants

  Your hands have turned daggers

  In the hearts of young men that chose to love you

  And you watch them bleed to death

  While their sisters you sell to rapists

  So why should I love you,

  Beauty of the black world.

  Sonnet XIX – Ode to My Girl’s Lost Toy

  I took a chance

  With you

  I played the fool

  For you

  And all I had

  Was you

  You kept my breath.

  You had no breath.

  Besides, you

  Were a card, lad.

  But you

  Were my real toy

  And you

  Were just of chance.

  Sonnet XX – Love Stopped My Heart

  Talking to you was death

  Meeting you was the first

  Of my many suicides.

  I blinked at you and so

  My mouth stopped its talking.

  I think of you and so

  My brain got clogged with fog.

  Then I touched you and my

  Fingers felt none smoother.

  I held you close and won’t

  Let go or let none close.

  My fault was loving you.

  ‘Twas what stopped my dear heart.

  From loving another.

  Sonnet XXI – Bleeding Love

  Then I’m looking at your legs

  Slim, fair, slender, pure and clear.

  Then I see your hips, smooth and clean

  Curving inwards to your torso.

  Where the water still dripping from

  The bath, softly makes my mouth dry.

  The soft mounting at your bosom,

  Rushed strength to my palms.

  But they got heavy.

  My eyes, fixed on your needly fingers

  Grows dim, the lids over them flutter,

  Flutter, flutter bleakly, it’s my blood flowing.

  Your tears flowing, dropping where the dart lingers.

  Where you shot my heart with the dart.

  Sonnet XXII – To the girl I once loved

  There was a girl I once loved

  She was fair-skinned and full of grace

  Her hair was full and glorious like the mid morning sun.

  Her cheeks were roses that bloomed radiantly.

  She wasn’t skinny, she always carried a full bunch

  And the fruits of it were ripe from the streams of love

  Whose serene springs soothed me with peace?

  The most beautiful creation of God

  Walks into my garden in the cool shade of the evening.

  Glides over my most well tended flowers

  With her lithe honey-sheeny skin

  She rolls over the softest growth of green in the meadow

  Filling my head and the air with the scents of God

  And I had not, the faintest strength to make her mine.

  Sonnet XXIII – Meddling

  I spoke with my friend today

  He wanted it to end today

  But she wants to make amends today.

  I hope he bends today

  “son, make amends today”.

  But he took offence today

  When I said “don’t lose your sense today”

  Love’s the seventh sense

  That took him over the fence

  For I winked at his girl

  In a moment I couldn’t tell

  That she wasn’t my girl.

  When your love’s just left you

  You ought not meddle in another’s love.

  Long Verses

 

  Ode to Chinua Achebe

  Life is like rain water

  It comes first in drizzles

  Then in trickles and drops

  When its quantity gets significant

  Then it stops in a sudden manner

  We won’t always have a rainy day

  When great men walk the land,

  Leaving giant footprints in the sands

  Their spirits swaying the air

  Challenging every atom of creation

  Voices booming in guttural, esoteric ecumenism

  “Do you know me?”

  The reply is humble,

  For who can know,

  The spirits of the great men

  Who hold the land.

  When Chinualumogu spoke

  It was a voice that challenged

  Corruption in governance,

  Despotism in leadership

  And racism in literature.

  The prophetic voice of literature

  From the literary wilderness of Africa.

  Though Prophets never last and time has moved so fast

  As the drizzles of your life quickly evolved

  Into torrential downpours while you wrote Africa’s story,

  Not just your own.

  The Epic of the Firebird

  In the days when the firebird

  Descended magnificently over

  The garden that was of Ooduwa’s care

  Watered by the sweet streams that

  Took its sour
ce from the golden rock.

  The gently flowing stream of

  Silvery, Glassy fluid of pure health

  The one whose seepage released

  The divine herbs whose green gave

  Eternal health to man and his beasts

  And the forbidden tree of life.

  Ah, the forbidden tree

  Took of this soothing sweet stream

  To fashion for Ooduwa, the evil fruit.

  Twasn’t always evil, the fruit

  Never was wont to be evil

  Twasn’t the desire of its creator,

  The Great Deity.

  Ooduwa was lonesome

  He never was at home

  In the midst of the joys,

  The sheer joys his garden brought

  For indeed, there was much joy

  And relish in the unfettered flight.

  The unfettered flurried flight

  Of his flame-feathered friend.

  The great bird of folk songs

  Whose feet spread the earth beneath man.

  Ooduwa’s garden lit up

  At the bird’s entrance

  When darkness fell, and gloom

  Withered the joy of his day’s work

  And the cult of powers, dark powers

  Poisoned the water in his throat and

  The blood in his veins, tormenting his sanity

  With visions of Sango’s axe

  casting bolts of flaming arcs around his work.

  The glorious bird, his light

  Lit the path to ayanmo.

  The Great Deity’s course

  For his newly found earth

  And its lone earthling.

 

  Acknowledgement

  I wish to appreciate all who made the writing and publishing of this book a reality. I could never thank you all enough, my immediate family (parents and siblings) who have all been supportive of my development over the years. I also want to appreciate friends and readers for buying my books and reading them.