Intoducing Myself
What better way to introduce myself than with a poem I wrote, so here goes:
Well the context of this poem is how I felt when I left Africa to finish off my education in England. All my friends gone, my parents still in Africa, my brothers too. Just gazing out the window dreaming and lost. Those days have passed but they still echo down the years.
The rain is sad today.
It was angry yesterday,
throwing itself mercilessly
against the glass in the door.
A drunk at the wrong house,
in the middle of the night.
Perhaps it has a hangover?
Just dripping from the gutter,
grey and uninterested.
With it’s eyes closed,
not caring where it falls.
On sad-rain days like today,
the epidemic infects me.
Sadness borne on the wind,
spreading itself across the countryside
Leaving misery in it’s wake.
I sit, and gaze.
Waiting…
For the joy of sunshine
to burn away the sadness
and caress my fevered skin.
Paul
Hi, My name is Paul. I Spent the first 14 years of my life growing up in Nigeria. My parents worked at a hospital at Vom in Plateau State and I went to a school called Hillcrest. I am married with 3 children, the youngest of which is deaf and the middle son has attention defecit hyperactivity disorder. I work in computers and accounts.Related Posts
4 Comments to “Intoducing Myself”
November 22nd, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Beautiful poem, Greeneglz. Welcome to the forum. I think I’d feel the same way if I had to leave Africa for England lol
Where do you live now? Is your name really Greeneglz because I can’t seem to spell it right haha
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November 22nd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Green eagles is a football team (soccer for those Americans out there). Think there is one in the States too as well as Nigeria. My actual name is Paul and I live in England now. Those times on the windowsill I remember so vividly as there was literally no-one who I could talk to about how I felt and the continual rain seemed to say it all. I probably didnt understand myself what I was going through. So lonely, so misunderstood by others around me. Feeling rejected by my parents (I wouldnt speak to them when they came to England about 3 months later). Another school, one of many, but with 1200 pupils. Me with an American accent, tanned skin, native leather bag for my school stuff and not a clue about English football. Fortunately time heals.
Greeneaglz
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December 16th, 2007 at 2:58 am
Thanks for your post — Where were you in Africa? Nigeria? Anywhere else?
Leaving Africa was one of the hardest things I ever have had to experience… (I was 16 when I moved away, off to finish high school in the States (ahh)… to a school with so many more people that had known each other their whole lives.) Am in Scotland now, but miss savannahs and thorn trees and the humming of cicadas in the Okavango Delta, miss the stars in the Sinai desert, miss searching for sandollars in tide pools in Maputo on a brilliant blue sky day… And noone quite understands what all I am missing…
And the different qualities of rain in every country are amazing…
Loved the poem, your first stanza was especially Rumi-esque.
Cheers!
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July 14th, 2008 at 5:26 am
Thanks SylvanSierra,
Apologies for delay in responding to your questions. Still trying to find my way round the forum.
Yep I was in Nigeria, up on the Plateau in Jos mainly. Visited one or two countries also like Ghana and Zambia since.
It was one of these trips lol that my wife was visited by a drunk in the middle of the night, banging on the door as he thought he was at his own house. Frightened the life out of her.
Yeah i do miss Africa, I miss the sense of freedom that was there, things in England seem so small and restrictive, so many fences and hedges, whether it be around someones house or the fields. Miss blue skies and the insect busy nights, the thunderstorms, the smell of rain, the goldfish bowl sky full of stars and galaxies. the smell of campfires and the low humm of voices around them. the lack of streetlights, the beautiful smiles on people’s faces, the busy markets and colourful clothes. climbing rocks, not having to wear shoes, bungalow houses, mosquito nets, the old colonial flatpack furniture held together with pegs, sitting up in mango trees eating all day, the goats, the Fulani people selling the milk fresh from the cow, the Hamatan dust, the green of the rainy season, fresh fruit of all sizes and shapes (not like in the supermakrets), yam, cassava, sweet potato, kuli kuli, chin chin, kosai and the other foods, fried plantain, birthday parties with sweets, biscuits, coke and fanta in glass bottles, tie die clothes embroidered. where do i stop lol.
Thanks,
Paul
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