UCHE NDUKA: 5 POEMS

 "A heart 

that writes. There is nothing to lose"

 

Uche Nduka by Fiona Gardner
Uche Nduka by Fiona Gardner

 

 

 

With Waves 

 

 

Eros would never leave 

Poetry would never leave 

Neither would serenity 

                             and wildness- 

 

The grass is conclusively grinning.

 

 

Architecture 

 

 

In emptiness 

or wounds/tales/outrage 

a touch of depravity 

 

A jar filled with memory 

slowrollingit through a cliff 

while belligerence takes your mind 

 

As if birth is not a death sentence 

each dawn harvests shrapnel 

what the violin did not tell the flute 

as if yesterday's massacres weren't enough

 

were we not targets on sidewalks 

sadder than all the winds found in translation 

what a sapling said to a hater

don't aim your void at me

 

 

 

Penchant 

 

 

as you teach i grow 

into the part i strum 

your clitoris 

 

aria & patio i split 

a mask apart i 

split a myth apart 

 

you go on pulling down 

your stockings 

 

a wineglass appears in your hand 

there are worse things 

than having a leg fetish 

 

 

 

On an envelope 

 

 

Writing on a blackboard 

there's a bookbag i've got 

to retrieve. 

 

If you sucker yourself 

into becoming a nostalgia act 

If you sucker yourself 

into becoming a novelty act 

don't blame me. 

 

Damn the middle class mentality! 

My guilt is the penalty for not 

being a mediocre. Where to begin 

is with a league of one. 

So effing sorry 

                   for blustery fuckery.

  

 

From a document 

 

 

He doesn't just stop 

at the animality of humanity. 

  

Every disappearance 

leads to another appearance. 

 

Were you there when 

Negritude became a tourist 

attraction? Awfully so? 

 

Call it dismay. How good it 

is to rage again. Leave 

the sandbox. Stay on the lam. 

 

Passing down the crown. A heart 

that writes. There is nothing to lose 

if you wait for the tide to answer your questions. 

 

At the height of it 

60 thousand souls took 

to the streets in Paris 

for your liberty in 1971. 

 

Either way you kept your options open. 

Move it. Now.

 

 

 

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