Crisis Poems
Futility
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
I return from a meaningless war
After witnessing a senseless carnage.
Behind me, bows and arrows with a
Hollow quiver.
The war is over, but rages on beyond
My escaped limits, where iguanas hum
Messages across festered hills.
The war was senseless and so was I.
The cause was infantile, ruthlessly foolish.
......
Shibboleth
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Machete salutations sweat
The rims of blades.
Sparks sprinkle fire-spittle
On the confused breath of hostile fumes
Branded Death.
Brines grow on festered fringes
Dappled with pestle-prints of
Silence,
Yet Death is borne on yawning.
......
Yesterday II
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Yesterday reclines on the tenuous
breath of ancestral drums,
and summons protocols for the crowning
of tomorrow.
A martinet, yonder, celebrates the sepia
aura in the spine of the vista of the last days;
atavism unfetters the imprecation of hastening
Dawns.
And angels lengthen azure apparels,
......
Earth
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Earth,
that fine, pneumatic
piece of gem from space,
bulbous, bluish with
the hand of beauty
adorned with furry clouds,
yet in closer sense lies
senseless to internal
doom.
Along the Line
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Snooze of peace reigned on a collage
of sacred impulse for serenity of shelter —
bower-girthed and soul-inundated —
but along the line, a stampede, peccant
and harlotic,
framed the sun.
The Outcome
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Calm.
Grinding gently the ingredients of patience.
The somnolent waves mourn.
There are no tunnels under the seas,
But vistas cut open through
Creeping lights foreshadowed by the
Debris of epochal wrecks.
Calm.
......
Along the Line
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Snooze of peace reigned on a collage
of sacred impulse for serenity of shelter —
bower-girthed and soul-inundated —
but along the line, a stampede, peccant
and harlotic,
framed the sun.
Yesterday II
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Yesterday reclines on the tenuous
breath of ancestral drums,
and summons protocols for the crowning
of tomorrow.
A martinet, yonder, celebrates the sepia
aura in the spine of the vista of the last days;
atavism unfetters the imprecation of hastening
Dawns.
And angels lengthen azure apparels,
......
This Waste!
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Disconsolate clouds above us
Wince at the rib-image cracks of lightning.
Billowing smokes of ashes eddy at the
Foot of this huge necropolis, replete with hate.
We mourn the loss of lustres ...
This Waste!
With insidious revelry, rodomontade of
Stripped masquerades besiege the crevices of our brook;
Our daughters, near insane, eviscerate themselves of
Enlarged yolk...
......
The Countenance of Deluge
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Cries from its voice.
On its face, a mask of demon,
And its countenance meanly dark.
The stars depart as Deluge stumbles.
Transmontane haloes quench their light
At the basement of valleys,
Retreating from the courage of waters.
Countenance of cornucopia,
......
