Three poems by Josh Pampam

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Life

To me

Life is like riding a bicycle

Through the lane of age

Pedalling

Starts with pleasure

Excitement and fun

Skin

Streams like butter

Beneath the sun

Like kids

Eating apple, every bite

Calls for another

I’d wish

I pedalled for long

Not until I got fatigued

After

Bumping on different

Depression along the road

I’d once

Try to stop by a catchment

When a belt reached for my breath

Life ends

When no strength

Wait on the feet again

A Gem

Have you seen a damsel?

Fragile like a phone screen.

Her skin, an oiled head-

Under the shadow of the sun.

When she moves, like drops

Of water racing on dry ground,

With her snowy teeth, a pack of

Pilgrims praying — peeping at me,

My urge does egress.

A garden in a summer-blooming,

such is her beauty every slice

Of dawn, her presence lies with me.

Her smiles, a fire — it burns

Into ashes, junk of life dumped

On the soil of my heart. A vessel of

virtue that quenched my thirst.

She is the leaf my tree wears.

Together we’ve been through

Spring and autumn, yet our

Lives cease not to approach bloom.

If you haven’t, you need to…

Memory Lane

Yesteryear, I flowed

Into the soil of my mother,

Like an injection through the skin;

I roamed about in a circle

To stop her monthly cycle

Before I sprouted out a stem.

In days agone,

I almost lost my hair to the tray,

That sit on my head like leaves on trees;

A tray filled with fried fishes.

As I walked the street,

Dust would cloud my feet,

But now, I’ve grown a little,

Tray era is now — a train of dress.

In other days buried long ago,

I used to be a Vulture,

Who feeds on others’ art

To contain my hunger for writing.

But now, I’m a beast who through study,

I feast on words to feed myself.

I was a stoic, stubborn boy

In school days gone now.

Whose skin, a night without moon

And clothes — the cloud at night.

But now, I am the ray of Sun

That peeps through the curtains of life.

Gone are those days,

I used to be a clueless lad

Who mar words for fun.

Literature found me

And turned me into a gardener

Who wreathes words on sheets.

About the author

Josh Pampam is a spoken word poet, a stylist and a saxophonist from the beautiful city of Ota in Ogun state, Nigeria. An aspiring student whose poems have featured in magazines, poetry chapbooks, anthologies and also have won himself accolades at every point of his writing career.