nigerians.biz : Nigerian poetry

Chika Unigwe

Legend (1)

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Wishes
At the Dinner Table
The Picture on the Mantlepiece
Home Coming of the Been-To
Depression
A road scene
Love Ending
My Uncle's Red Vest
Simon Nkeazi
Music On the Radio

Wishes

If I could

squeeze words from these stones

like water from a blanket

soaked in a tub

believe me

I would

To pacify a hungry soul

Devoid of talent

force an errant muse

to come

eager to appease

my anguished soul

At the Dinner Table

You passed me the salt
It was to your right, I think
And what was it you asked for?
"Honey, could you pass me the curry?"

I didn't even know you had developed a taste for it
For whom? I wonder

There are lots of things
I don't know anymore, I guess
We have reached the end
"I will love you forever"

It used to ring true but we don't even say that
Not to lie, I know

In the middle
Is a bowl of carrots
And we reach for it
Together, maybe there is a chance

The Picture on the Mantlepiece

The three of us
Clothed in normalcy
Framed by rich oak wood
With hues of red

Red

I should have known
When I met you
That you were
A bull waiting to snap

Red

The colour of danger
I have always been warned
But I saw you
In hues of brown

Red

What was it
That set you off?
Pulled us all
To a dinner with the devil.

Home Coming of the Been-To

My been-to cousin came home yesterday
Seven leather suitcases , made in Italy, bought in England, bulging with goods from Abroad:

drugs to keep her from falling ill on our water
packets of cereal to fill her stomach
For how can you trust our food?
detergent to wash out our dust
Which possessively hugs and fiercely clings on
spoiling the freshness of American-shopped clothes

My been-to cousin came home yesterday
In blue jeans trousers
and a pair of Nikes

And the heat caught her "quite by surprise!"

Depression

I dreamt in techni-color
Tonight of you
Not Sprawled across
Like you were when they found you
A James Patterson character
Devoid of life
A corpse
How cold!
Still makes me shiver and tremble and shiver

I dreamt in techni-color
Tonight of you
Dancing in my arms
Like we used to
In those long ago days
When life was a long beautiful summer

I dreamt in techni-color
Tonight of you
It was so real
My techni-colored man
I woke and cried

And cried

Cele Uwa

When the news came from home
Spirited by the waves
That you had gone
I snapped my fingers beside my ears
To still the steps of fate

I weave a basket of words
To accompany you on your journey

If you listen really hard
You will hear the trilling of my voice
As it calls your name
And reminds you of what you were
What you are

I garner a harvest of euphonies
To lament my loss of you

A Road Scene

Suspicious eyes catch a glance of me
Quick
Black-all-leather bag is strangled underneath her arm
Tight, tighter still
For I am the colour of sin
of cruel hands stabbing
of hungry eyes lusting
of wayward feet looting

And
On her
I smell ignorance
So fetid it chokes me with its stench

Love Ending

Clean washing
Hung to dry but forgotten
Is how you make me feel
Feel me
Why do chains soften weaken whither whatever
Where is the love
You promised me
Will last foreverandeverandever
Is this how long how short
A forever lasts
Is our forever over
Was it ever?

My Uncle's Red Vest

There is a red vest
Hung out on my laundry line
Billowing in the wind
That is my uncle
Or all that is left of him
You never knew him. You should have
He danced like the wind
Blowing us all away
With his intensity
For a life
He loved to live
But which failed him
He was called away
Way too soon
And I am left
With this red vest.

Simon Nkeazi

I shall rescue your name
From these ashes I throw
Where you willed
Across a sea vast
Vast like the palm of your hand
It was the biggest palm I ever saw
With branches trailing off to your finger-tips
You used to tease me
That those were the palms
On which the world stood
And I believed you then
Just like I believed you were invincible
You
Whom the gods loved
Who had death
Secured in his pouch
I shall call out your name
Again and again and again
And you shall live once more.

Music On the Radio

The music playing on the radio
That was ours wasn't it?
A long drooling that could lift you at the best of times
Sedate
Sedate
Seduce
Until it drowned you
In its sweetness
Forced your walk-lust legs
You claim
To wander far far away
From home
Into her arms
Killing us.