Two Poems by Agholor Leonard Obiaderi

PARADOX OF TOIL

It was the irony that

slayed him, cutting
deep to the bone-marrow
with thin blades of air

from a windmill,

sharp
swift
silent like the
teeth of recession at redundant
factory gates.

In his youth, he

ate the heart of toil
like bees
pads depressing the colourful
landing platforms of petals
ruffled by the breeze

enthusiastically wrangling pot-fuls

of nectar,
as they bargained swift
contingencies of arrival.
Faces and hands blacked by
the Viking sun of
strenuous labour.

In his old age, prey in a

widening web strangled by
windmills in a paradox of
hardwork,
buzzing to and fro
for less reward.

DYING 

Red takes scalps. A dying

breath,
slowly evaporating, acquires
violent colour.The wounded
soldier’s white
uniform vest
stained dark with blood.

His baby son visits

in his mother’s arms.The doctor
barks at her,
fear leaping out of the infant’s
mouth.

The soldier is screaming. The baby’s

red T-shirt is dragging him to a red-fire
hell in convulsive visions.

Red reminds him of the danger

In the battle-field;
of flame-like bullets flying through
the dark-faced night;
of men with bloodshot eyes
dying of red-lipped wounds
deadlier than vampires’ kisses.

A sunset-coloured flag suffuses

a bull’s eye with madness,
the red T-shirt drags the soldier
to the scene of his own death.

Nurses wear white teeth, to

camouflage Doctor’s uniforms of
stainless snow.

Agholor Leonard Obiaderi lives in Nigeria. He loves poetry and crime novels though he has no criminal friends. He has been featured as poet of the week in Poetry Super-Highway and Wild Violet Literary Magazine. His poems have been published in Storm Cycle Anthology of Kindofahurricane Press.