July 2025 "Editor's Choice": Clerick Omo Alfa

SOME POEMS

The paper lay flat before me

Ink moved, but not with fire

My hand obeyed a quiet rhythm

Words fell, heavy and uninspired

No soul leaped from the lines

No hush from the sky leaned in

The poem walked without a limp

But its feet left no trace

I paused, not for wonder: only silence

No echoes from the reader's face

No thrill in the turning of a page

No gaze trapped in metaphor

I did not mourn the lifeless stanzas

Nor questioned the absent applause

What need have I

To raise my heart even an inch

For a song that cannot stir the sleeping?

A whisper, lost before it finds the ear.

Those verses -tight but hollow -

Slide into shadows of forgetfulness

I don't chase them

I won't grieve them

They came without a spark

And left without a glow

Now I fold them

Not in shame, but in knowing

Some poems breathe

Some merely exist

And I -

I will raise my pen

Only for the former

© CLERICK OMO ALFA

*****

IF THE WORLD GATHERS

A hush

Falls over a crowded room

Where verses sleep beneath lips

And meaning flickers

In the shadows of stares

As if a name - unspoken -

Waits to rise with the breath

Of memory unloosed

I do not shout

Yet I echo

In ink-stained silence

Where pens remember pain

And joy wears metaphors

Like a second skin

There - amid lines

Folded like secrets

I wait

The wind carries

No banners of mine

Only the weight of syllables

That once broke gently

On someone's mind

Like waves

That never meant to drown

Only touch

If the world gathers

To chant names

Of those who bent light

Into language

Let my name

Be the sudden hush

Before applause

Let it linger

Like the scent

Of burnt paper

Still warm

With truth

And remember me

Not because I asked -

But because

The poem

Did not let you

Forget.

© CLERICK OMO ALFA

Bio:

Nigerian prolific poet, a poetry coach, a certified book project consultant

and an indefatigable poetry reviewer. As a poetry coach, he teaches people

how to become good poets.