Dubai Days manuscript

Vacant Seat



4th Jan 18


I see an empty stool in the chimney corner

by the sooty hearth

And an old crutch

Without an owner,

Hung nimbly over the mantelpiece.

The shadows leap
And flail up the musty walls

As the logs hiss and the bark cracks in the
marauding flames.

Time tames the passions

And the fates spin, spool and cut the yarn.

We will be gone tomorrow
To silent ash and still soil

To replace this coil

With new chains and millstones

Where the bones have perished to powder

And there are no more days left to have regrets and
make amends
And tie up loose ends.

There’s a vacant seat

Where we sit

And it

Will not mourn us.

Vaunting Youth Wanting Wisdom




Mar 17




Youth is wasted on the young;

The rock of ages on the old.


Love conquers all, I am told.




But your love is licit by global decree and defence.

Mine is, at best a shameful secret,

At worst, a hangable offence.





Your ruddy topers that bundle out of breweries

And the boudoirs of bordellos,

Are in no position to preach about turpitude.




Fresh faced tawpies gore and bore

Taciturn elders on worldly wisdom,

Confusing, as the young often do,


Naive optimism with moral courage; the silly fools.



















Waking Up to a World in Throes



Jun 18


This world is choking on plastics
And suffocating in polythene bags.
This world is ridden with hidden cancers
And climatic cholera.
A world drowning in toxins.
Humanity is a viral infection
It has yet to find the antidote for.
The open sores
Of gaping holes
In atmospheres,
Of felled forests
And land fills
And quarries
Is a self-afflicted wound
Upon the scarred blue-green skin ravaged by the
leprosy of mankind.
The unlit fuse of nuclear plants
And nuclear weapons
Is a ticking bomb
That should
Keep us awake at night.
The 'lesser' animals
Are blighted
By our reckless avarice and wanton destruction.
It's death by consumption,

Death by capitalism
And death by politics.
Redemption seems a dim dream.
Praying for time,
We give mind
To what is and what will be.

We Are One: One Colour, One World




1st May 17




We all bleed red,

In the profusion of hatred and aggression.


We brood black when disillusioned

Weakened and bleakened by depression.


We think and feel as one

And are tickled pink

When loved and lavished


With attention and acceptance.


We are all envious green

And vermillion with pent-up rage

And pale white with infirmity


And fright.

We are one.

One world under one sun

Turning cartwheels on golden sands as the turquoise
waves

And rainbow flowers and fruit


Lick the lips and sweeten

The air of our blue-green Eden.

We Could be Making Love


Jun 18


I was going about my day

The day

When I met you on the street.
We were friends of friends

But not anymore. They went.
I got to know you o l'amore.

Sometimes our love falters and flickers
And we bicker.

There's tiny rifts.

Tiff tiff.
Chill and smoke a spliff.

Today's Romeo and Juliet we could be

Or Tom and Jerry.
You annoy me

By picking food off my plate
When we go out to eat.

You got me

Baring teeth losing sleep at night.

You get me so mad. But not really.
I got the feels for you so bad. Reality.

I guess I'm smitten.

I want to hug you but I don't wanna get bitten.
I'm not sorry for what I said

Even though it keeps me up in my bed

While you sleep counting sheep above
your head

When we could be making love.

















When Life Hands You a Lemon



Mar 18


When life hands you a lemon,

Make lemonade!

Or

Add tequila and ice.

Drowning your sorrows can be nice!

Or
make lemon meringue and get fat.

Who would not enjoy that?!

Or

Make a lemon battery of electrons

To blast the electric chair your sat on...!

When You Wish Upon a Star, Wish that Your
Dreams Don't Come True


Nov 17





Through hell and high water,

Through lacerated skin and stumbling over
shattered bones,

Through shrieks and moans,
Drowning in diamonds carved from frozen tears,

Rummaging through rubies cut from infected
blood,

Through rubble and mud,

Through rain and shine,

I will come
And I shall find you.



Two hands hold one another in the dark,

A piano strikes a despondent chord

In a distant room.

You say you had a dream

Which came undone at the seam.
You sacrificed everything you had to make it come
true

But now you

Find a dream realised

Is often a nightmare lived.


You kept on searching for your port in the storm.

You were born

In a tempest.

You lived life in troubled waters.

Flitting between drowning and swimming.

You still believe some day you'll see the shore

And find land beneath your feet.
But for now, you'll keep on giving into the sea,

Caving into its cruelty,

Churning with the violent motion

Of the deep, dark ocean.

Swimming,

Drowning,

Treading water,

Succumbing to the scurvy and hunger,
Baiting the sharks,

Surrendering to the dark

Forces within you.











This is a detail from a painting by the Nigerian
abstract expressionist artist Yusuf Seidu Okus.

To learn more about his exhibitions and to purchase
his work, please visit
http://artbyyusufokus.blogspot.com/