Where-ever you see this sign, it means that you can listen to the poem. Just click on the poem title to hear!
This is today
This is today.
It is unique
There is no other day like it in
history
And when it is gone
You will never see it
again.
I walked down the street and saw the snow glistening on some trees
and the crisp packets, littered on the street
I heard the news from the TV interlaced with the hum of a hundred
cars jammed tighter than minced meat with their horns singing an inharmonious
midday Christmas chorus
I felt the hearty laughter of school holiday kids, with jackets hung loose and purses swung low
Ipods.... and All Stars stomping in and out of yesterday's snow
prints.
I lived today.
The only day of today-
The only today in time.
And I - will live today again
Tomorrow.
Atomic Love
Unstable. The atom that rocks, and misses her cradle.
And that’s why, she breaks down... To become
More stable.
Vast amounts of bubbling emotion released.
Will her lonely time, fuse with his?
She always put more in than she ever could extract from their,
Relationship. His charge, was always negative.
But now her soul collides, with the possibility of a new equation.
And now her mind, has been inspired, by this
Formulation.
And as a consequence of the experiment, of her love
There’d be, a chain- reaction… chain-reaction, chain -reaction
Into, his heart.
Imperfect
One day they fell. Still clinging to the hope of the clouds from which they’d fallen.
Sifted
Mama gently taps the sieve with her hand
Watching old flour sprinkle and the ugly lumps
That didn't filter though.
She's grateful, for what did.
I’ve trodden this path before
And the footprints still, lie frozen in my heart.
Chilling my dreams, the imagined landscapes, what I hoped -
To see, now blown over.
Yet, still I can’t help wondering, what’s there beyond all the snow?
I see a piece of metal logged in the ice, a broken mirror perhaps, a snapped window?
And it shines, like the warmth
Of your reflection as it permeates the ice.
And so, I nervously look up, and now
It’s my frosty stare that’s been broken,
Thawing, my feelings of ice...
Something-cracks.
- Elizabeth Haruna
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discovering an exotic forest, one day
I move through its green, its broad foliage.
Soft braches, breaking beneath my embracing feet, as I level
The rich, chocolate earth.
I see the birds aloft, beating, their long elegant wings
And through the cracks, in the plants
I feel, the warm meandering breeze.
Quaint crickets, jump – I move, I hear
Their clicking sound,
And see a school, of defiant red ants, Marching
As I look upon the ground.
Birds soaring, with outstretched wings
Intoxicating red, heat,
Sweat, clinging to my skin.
Like little oceans, almost afraid to spill.
And as I near the break, I peer down-
To see
Pillars, of smoke
And tractors whirring,
Sound,
Of sand
And mortar? Stirring?
Then dust…
Like a mushroom cloud,
Swallowing, the scene
Searing though my prefect forest dream.
- Elizabeth Haruna
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Breaking
Breaking from the curt, cords of your neat office files, black fax machines and paper.
Struggling through a splintered stream, of lightly bobbing faces, places brush past me Leaving you, swiftly behind.
Reaching to the soft edge, of a boundary barred, boundless
In its latitude of unfamiliar joy.
Travelling now,
And touching the iridescent dome, of unrealised weather- beaten dreams, and
Un-visualised heavy, clouded
Hopes.
Breaking form the curt, cords of your, neat offices files,
Black fax machines
And paper.
Tell me, do I
Terrify?
- Elizabeth Haruna
Notes:
This poem was written to express the feelings of a person who feels trapped in a work situation that they want to escape. Instead of a jail cell being this woman's confinement, it is her job. She works in an office driving her to "achieve and succeed", but her real desire is to break free from the confinements of an obsessively -success driven work environment to a more natural one, one where she can be truly free to express herself as a unique and creative individual.
The curt cords mentioned in line 1 can be seen as the obstacles preventing the woman's freedom, the psychological chains that hold her back from being who she really is and living, as she really wants to live. The use of alliteration is a deliberate effect aimed at giving the poem a sense of speed. This should enable the reader to grasp the erratic and to an extent desperate, feelings of the individual at the centre of this piece. The "splintered stream" conveyed in line 2 is representative of the vast influences and pressures that she faces from work. It is splintered because of broken perspective she holds as she struggles to escape her tense environment.
In line 3, the "soft edge" and "boundary barred" are depictive of the limitations that the woman is now becoming free from. The idea of a boundary itself, being barred is an attempt to strongly portray this.The "iridescent dome" described in line 6 reads of a fantasy or a dream becoming real. The line carries on to explain how the dream has suffered setbacks, it has been "weather-beaten" or harassed by the seasons of life.
The "Hopes", described in the next line as "un-visualised", "heavy" and "clouded" speaks of wishes that have been so greatly desired and, at the same time so much doubted that they have been suppressed and left unthought-of consciously.In the third stanza of "Breaking", the poem repeats itself-ending how it began. With the image of the woman breaking away from her adverse environment.
In the last two lines, the poem borrows the words found in Sylvia Plath's poem, "Lady Lazarus", "Tell me, do I terrify?". In this poem, these words are used to make a poignant statement from the worker to her almost tyrannical boss. She asks him if her desire and decision, to break away from the "status quo" of the office is a statement which he finds intimidating.
What would your response be to this woman?
Elizabeth - DPW.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
River Eyes
Your deep, river eyes…
I saw them, not long
Ago. And as we talked, your soul spilled out, and caught
My inner woes.
Your, innocent… river eyes,
Set sail, in me these thoughts.
Outside, voluminous conversation
Hovers, stirs. But, I
Remain, inside.
It’s your river, eyes.
- Elizabeth Haruna
© 2005 Elizabeth Haruna