ARE POETS’ WORDS ENOUGH?
Words, a poet spills
Like vomited pills
Words laden with meanings
Either to encumber the ears
Or ease the heart it pierces

Osundare, the Sango of our time
Spilling words like fire which rhyme

Ose* Sango summoned thunder
As your pen, a harbinger
To our disabled mother
Marooned in a season by a leader

'Ours to plough, Not to plunder' - your words
But Greed makes no one ploughs,
'They have lynched the lakes'. Who?
Our leaders
'They have slaughtered the sea'. Who?
Our religious leaders
Mountains have been mauled - by who?
Gullible followers

Yet you give us hope:
‘Our earth will not die’

She is dying in anguish
Hopelessness ravages here essence
She has lost her rhythm in the face of ambush
Orchestrated by science

Science without conscience
Savaging or ravaging?
Science of corruption
Conscience of disruption

Where is the hope, Osundare?
Her case worst than Abiku's 
Whose deliverer, in the array 
Of men in collar and lawanis* 
Has been arraigned for extortion

Where's the respite?
We've been tsunamined

Have you not heard the rustling of the ground
In preparedness for the coming eruption
One that will be without remedy.

WOULDN'T THIS BE IDEAL FOR THE NIGERIAN SITUATION?

”I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...”
 

"As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment; at most not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands." - Jonathan Swift

EULOGISING MURPHY NJEMBA

In Brilla, there is a Murphy
And in my heart, he's won a trophy.

To flank his right side, Sean Amadi
While Overdose to the left, so easy.

Sexy Mama, on a standby, so pretty.

Omo Anifowoshe, to us all, your words,
Are our shields and swords.

Alapere of Ilaja, your soothing laughter,
Lightens our hearts to become brighter.

In football matter, you are the Shakespeare;
But in life realities, a Lincoln with no  despair.

A succour you are to our sickening souls;
And a relief to pains in our soles.

Radio Maradona, a day without Brilla,
Is like a church without a preacher.

Just as a day without Radio Paparati,
Is like a king missing in a community.

Your parting words daily, health talks
And analysis are  didactic and motivating.

Murphy, how shall it be without you!


Oluwasola.

Earth as Art – From Near (Inside a Stone) and Far (the Space Station)

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who is 91 days into a yearlong mission as commander of the International Space Station, has been posting strings of photographs of our remarkable planet on Twitter using the hashtags #EarthArt and #YearInSpace. Here are a few examples from earlier in June:

Photo

On June 22, Commander Kelly, posting an image of a meandering river, said, “[It’s] interesting how meaningless squiggles are until they stand for something else.” 

Exploring his output earlier this week, I was struck by how much the images, framed intentionally as abstractions, reminded me of a much more close-focus look at Earth — the spellbinding mineral macrophotography of Bill Atkinson, who’s best known as one of the pioneering programmers behind the Macintosh computer.

Photo

A closeup photograph of a polished section of Dali stone, a form of marble from China's Yunnan province, from "Within the Stone," a book by Bill Atkinson.Credit Bill Atkinson

In 2004, I was one of a batch of writers, also including Diane Ackerman, John Horgan and Dorion Sagan, invited to describe our impressions of Atkinson’s mineralogical “landscapes” in prose or poetry for the book “Within the Stone.”

I wrote about a couple of the images in 2008. Below you can see a 1.8-inch cross section of pietersite quartz, followed by my little riff from the book, which centers on how time scales shape perceptions of what’s going on around us.

In the photograph, I saw the eternal battle between water and rock, which rock seems to win at any given moment as you watch waves break on a coast. But just wait awhile. 

 

Here’s my haiku:

We tend to recognize and give weight to agents of change mainly if they operate within our frame of reference, an attention span calibrated to the rhythms of human life—to hours and days, maybe years, rarely decades.

Waves are no such thing. They are fed by forces as near perpetual as the sun’s rays and the Earth’s spin. They know nothing of time, despite their metronomic manner. They roll until impeded.

It is the waves that break when surging seas collide with rocky shores. Thus is born the impression that water is weak and rock a bastion. But it is the human eye, of course, that is weak. Handicapped, really. Shortsighted in the most profound way.

With human perception of time and environmental change in mind, I hope you’ll read the invaluable essay on “Existential Risks” contributed by Martin J. Rees, the Cambridge University cosmologist and Astronomer Royal of England, at the 2014 Vatican meeting that built much of the foundation for Pope Francis’s encyclical on humans and the environment. Here’s a relevant excerpt:

We need to realize that we’re all on this crowded world together. We are stewards of a precious ‘pale blue dot’ in a vast cosmos – a planet with a future measured in billions of years, whose fate depends on humanity’s collective actions. We must urge greater priority for long-term global issues on the political agenda. And our institutions must prioritize projects that are long-term in a political perspective, even if a mere instant in the history of our planet.

We need to broaden our sympathies in both space and time and perceive ourselves as part of a long heritage, and stewards for an immense future.

I hope you can take the time to read the essay in full. There’s much more to explore at the Vatican website holding all of the lectures and papers contributed for that meeting.

By Andrew C. Revkin

YOU

In a glimpse into your eyes
I see calmness of soul,
a product of your smile.

A careful study of You,
like an eight unit course,
a precision of aesthetics.

The ball of your eyes,
the succulent flesh of your face,
the hairdo, all make without 
doubt a perfect compliment
of You.

Why Women Apologize and Should Stop

EVERYONE knows what dirt tastes like. Last week, I ordered a salad at a restaurant and found myself crunching on a shoddily washed leaf. I took a few more sandy bites before explaining the situation to my waiter, apologizing and asking to see the menu once again.

When my second-choice dish arrived, 20 minutes later, it was blanketed in bacon. I don’t eat meat, a dietary restriction for which I was “very sorry.” By the time a plate of edible food appeared, my fork had been a casualty of the confusion. Unable to catch the waiter’s eye, I walked to the kitchen, where I apologized to a busboy.

For so many women, myself included, apologies are inexorably linked with our conception of politeness. Somehow, as we grew into adults, “sorry” became an entry point to basic affirmative sentences.

True, this affliction is not exclusive to our gender. It can be found among men — in particular, British men — but it is far more stereotypical of women. So, in the words of a popular 2014 Pantene ad, why are women always apologizing?

One commonly posited theory, which informs everything from shampoo commercials to doctoral dissertations, is that being perceived as rude is so abhorrent to women that we need to make ourselves less obtrusive before we speak up. According to a 2010 study in the journal Psychological Science, “women have a lower threshold for what constitutes offensive behavior,” so are more likely to see a need for an apology in everyday situations. We are even apt to shoehorn apologies into instances where being direct is vital — such as when demanding a raise.

I’m dubious about this catchall explanation. The bend-over-backward compulsion to avoid giving offense might account for plenty of unnecessary “pleases” or “excuse me’s,” but it doesn’t sufficiently account for the intensity of a “sorry.”

Here’s the paradox: Every day, we see more unapologetically self-assured female role models, yet women’s extreme prostration seems only to have increased. A recent “Inside Amy Schumer” sketch wonderfully skewered our propensity to apologize: One by one, various accomplished women on a panel apologize, first for trivial things like being allergic to caffeine, or for talking over one another, but finally for having the gall to exist in the first place. The discrepancy between what those women offer the world and how they conduct themselves in it elevates the sketch from amusing to disturbing.

This is not to suggest that all men are rude and unapologetic and that women are the inverse, but something incongruous is happening in women’s behavior that can’t be chalked up to reflexive politeness. Look at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new ads warning New York straphangers against inconsiderate behavior, like eating on the subway or manspreading. Graphics depict men displaying almost all these behaviors, except, perhaps in an effort to provide gender balance, the one that advises women to avoid elbows-out personal grooming.

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The scenario seems ridiculously unrealistic — and not just because it’s the only one I’ve never witnessed firsthand. The ads are saying that men are far less likely to be conscious of personal space than women. So why, even after making ourselves physically smaller on the subway, are we still the ones apologizing?

I think it’s because we haven’t addressed the deeper meaning of these “sorrys.” To me, they sound like tiny acts of revolt, expressions of frustration or anger at having to ask for what should be automatic. They are employed when a situation is so clearly not our fault that we think the apology will serve as a prompt for the person who should be apologizing.

It’s a Trojan horse for genuine annoyance, a tactic left over from centuries of having to couch basic demands in palatable packages in order to get what we want. All that exhausting maneuvering is the etiquette equivalent of a vestigial tail.

When a woman opens her window at 3 a.m. on a weeknight and shouts to her neighbor, “I’m sorry, but can you turn the music down?” the “sorry” is not an attempt at unobtrusiveness. It’s not even good manners. It’s a poor translation for a string of expletives.

These sorrys are actually assertive. Unfortunately, for both addresser and addressee alike, the “assertive apology” is too indirect, obscuring the point. It comes off as passive-aggressive — the easiest of the aggressions to dismiss.

So we should stop. It’s not what we’re saying that’s the problem, it’s what we’re not saying. The sorrys are taking up airtime that should be used for making logical, declarative statements, expressing opinions and relaying accurate impressions of what we want.

We are not sorry to ask for an email that should have been sent to us weeks ago, or to expect to receive the item we paid for, or to be bumped into on the subway. Yes, we should take the shampoo commercial’s advice and weed out the word when it’s superfluous. But it’s just as important to articulate exactly what we mean in its place.

Julia Child, a consummate charmer, said it best: “Never apologize.” Probably because she never asked anyone to eat dirt.

By SLOANE CROSLEYJUNE 23, 2015

source: NEW YORK TIMES

MARY KAY- poem

                 MARY KAY                                                                    

You caused it...
And everyone knows it.

When you are going to a party,
And your face is so messy
I rescue you with a pity.
So that you can look really pretty.

Yes i know...

                                                     And many trousers troop after you like flies
                                                     Trailing you here and there like spies
                                                     Some even take you for Mrs. Nice.
                                                     Not knowing all were lies.

But it's not my fault...

Since 'his' eyes control 'his' mind,
Many minds will likely remain blind.
Oh! what a charming charm to bind.
Sincerely, to me, Mary Kay is kind.

Nemesis...

But what a sorry case for me,
It rained and my face you need to see
How it became a factory of cocoa tea
Just as the sky started to pee.

Metamorphosis...

Different now my face; he chased me away
This time, sadly, my outing didn't pay
And i pray never again to have such a day
When all will know i use Mary Kay.

Since then I've learned to stay indoor
Whenever there will be a downpour.

20-06-2015