TYELEV MARCUS-TOMMORROW DIED YESTERDAY

Poem By Tyelev Marcus

Title: 

TOMORROW DIED YESTERDAY

When papa sold the only piece

of land he inherited from his father,

So as to get me schooled 

It was unknown to him that he had framed dreams on a wall forged with broken bottles 

Wasn't it just yesterday? 

When he smiled like a God 

While he played Ayo at the market square, drunk with dreams of an educated child 

Papa's voice was a cold whisper,

a strayed soft-breeze that put his friends in their places

“Shut up! Okoro, when men who have educated kids are talking, you listen.”

He would pound his chest like a wrestler, so as to be heard

Papa was a proud town crier

Even the king knew his place

While he addressed him

Unfortunately, his utopian dreams never came to light

When I graduated with a pass,

The world was silent 

And it was felt at every corner and town like the plane that crashed into the world market

Papa handed me a cup of fire

Hot; smoked the colour of his anger

With a wrath-filled eyes

And his soft gentle voice, replaced with that of a volcano while my heart was dressed in mourning

Papa's dreams became dead flowers

Littered in the Harmattan, with petals brown from grief, I knew them because they were coloured birds nested around his head,

a secret hideout in a claustrophobic space of nothing 

Where all his pains were locked up in a sprawling closet of dark clouds.

About The Author;

Tyelev Marcus is a creative writer, graphics designer and a student of Awendo Media College.

The Tiv born is an emerging poetry writer and is currently Studying English and Literature at the University of Benin