Culture Poems
The Refugee Never Lied
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Burning fresco of a new-image rainbow
has glint and farewell lines for
departing birds...
The refugee pledges oaths
against lies towards the arch of a
gleaned pathway
The Way-between links Sodom
with by-way museums of salt in
......
A Letter To My Aunt
by Dylan Thomas
A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach To Modern Poetry
To you, my aunt, who would explore
The literary Chankley Bore,
The paths are hard, for you are not
A literary Hottentot
But just a kind and cultured dame
Who knows not Eliot (to her shame).
Fie on you, aunt, that you should see
No genius in David G.,
No elemental form and sound
......
Discrimination
by Adelaide Rhead
Why do you think you're better
If your culture is not the same?
Yes, maybe you seem different
But deep inside all are the same.
Why do they think they're better?
If one is black and one is white,
If one is man and one is woman.
They are the same, that is their right.
......
Narrow Paths
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
The sinners who hastened out of Eden
on that morning of intense blemishes
provoked the energy of the sun,
and it shone with reckless rays,
melting bluffs that levelled up with
crying land;
and then came the power of rain
which carved up old tracks into sinuous routes,
thus swallowing our pride on our behalf.
Extended Trials
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Trials beget trials.
O'nubile maid of the Sahara, run towards
Us with mad flapping of your young breasts.
Run for trials.
Rebekah hastens towards thirsty
Camels — and trials begin.
Tabloids have ears.
Every dot is the eye of the news.
Faith and impediments waste wave-energy
......
The Venue
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Terrains long dawdled on —
Long abandoned —
Among clammy and breeze-spiralling clusters of
Alien foliage —the Venue—
Dreaded and hidden in a moonless precinct,
Waking thoughts and compassion of domestic
Instruments and feeble-minded reptiles.
The Venue —gathering maisonettes of our sires —
The stonebox of jewellery of costly counsels,
Kernel eyes etched into its moss-ridden walls.
......
One-Minute Fool
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
At this road of congruity, has he frowned
At flagellation.
Abnegation has long ceased to be his watchword,
And conforming his values, has he arranged
His worth in sterling grace.
He's a sybarite, this philistine
In every sixty second has he guarded
His loincloth to blink at the
Naked day, but has prepared the ground
......
Mad Waters
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Mad waters come our way.
Seasons are gleaned from lean stems
beneath bloodless rocks;
thresholds, scorched, reprint footsteps
of dark ages replete with foul breath.
Alas, mad days are here.
And with clouds mourning near
disconsolate skies,
the heavens themselves lay siege on
......
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,
......
Yesterday
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Blithe humour yearns for
Pridian vagaries before now,
Trusting the mooring of able
Ships on clear waters of
Mirror images.
Wistful, our call on the sere
Tongue of harmattan, when
Pines whistled in unison to
Welcome straying and returning
Birds – black confetti over
......
