MEASURING TIME
The Angel of Death is in the
neighbourhood,
and it soon will be my turn. But not in such
ignoble fashion.
—Helon
Habila; Waiting for an Angel.
Hanging
from the altitude of a cliff & humming silence
to
all those who wish to hear. Nothing really happens in
the
suburbia; just a few beer and cold tuna fishes wrapped
in
browning papers; the newspaper I hold unfolds itself
from
the grasp of my dactyl & the nifty shapeshifting
alley
cats glisten their eyes of sadness towards me. They
seemed
to say: what now? I remember the halcyon days
growing
in the creeks of the Delta. I am but a little boy again,
sitting
by the river side, holding my sea conch and screaming
for
my mother. Someone has taken her, and I can no longer find her.
A
sea of hurried faces run down my sight &
still, my mother, she
is singing little now. The Biafran soldiers
are coming, they want
to
take me from my mother; to the land of guerillas and shrapnels.
They
are near. My mucus infested foreside matches the kiosks that
once used to sell cigarettes, over there. &
you say my suspension
on
a cliff is but a coincidence? one in a myriad rarities...
The dashing & chic angel of death calls to me, he whispers these
things,
like dropping my alpenstock and reaching for the stars since
my poetry will take charge over me & won't
let me break my neck.
What poetry wouldn't break a neck? How I mix
my ginger & tumeric
in my egret coated mug is but another tale I have
scripted in my
cookbook
of life. & one by one, I am scything & garnering
barleys
for some high school students—they use them for their
apothecaries
& I know I am a little old now, I am still at
the precipice of it all, that is a bane we all share.
VERILY VERILY, IT SPRUNG UP AGAIN
let
me start again.
and
because I was told not to start a sentence with "because"
I
have chosen to wedge my
feelings
with a blunt
that
only a mournful lyre can
wail.
un-
predictability
has become more
of
an asset than liability to me
and
those who wish me what they wish
me.
this
is me. I am that boy
you
see crouching beneath his
grandmother's
mahogany desk.
waiting
with his grizzled bear to
startle
his grandmother; knowing she
would
always say:
"Luke!
You scared me!"
and
father would always run out
calling
to me: "grandma is a PTSDer!
leave
her alone."
and
just like that, father would
take
her into that gentle dark room
to
tell her that the war was all
over,
and that Ojukwu never returned
from
Ivory Coast. and she would
always
break down in tears.
Beatification of the Kite-Flying Boy
Over
the peat bogs & mosses,
dins
of astonished feet melt through
the
distance. The smell of petrichor
mixes
with the hanging sweat of the
boys;
age five & ten. & they are in no
hurry
to be anywhere—anywhere is nowhere
Each
time the delicacy of smoked fishes
&
yams were made, they would
prefer
the miraculous moon & sun of which
their
innocent quivering hands could reach
out for things ever so splendid
Ears
attuned to the parochial church bell &
eyes
halting to the felling of sacrificial oxen.
They
stop with their jolly tethering
quadrilaterals
& disappear into thin mist
when
they see the priest approaching
They
didn't know poetry, but they knew
music.
& the first time they heard a poet
recite
his poem, their eyes sulled into
calcified
pebbles, moltened from the core
brass
in an inner factory. They preferred
to
sing & leap for joy in their
piles
of nothing they called home.
They
weren't urchins, they weren't beggars,
for
between true friends, even water
drunk
together is sweet.
Prosper
Ifeanyi is a writer and student of English and Literary Studies in Delta State
University, Abraka. His works are featured/forthcoming in Afrocritik,
Salamander Ink Magazine, Kalahari Review, Nantygreens, Bluepepper, Terror House
Press, Aôthen Magazine, The Temz Review and elsewhere. He is the founder and
Editor-in-Chief of OneBlackBoyLikeThat Review, a literary blog which curates
works of art and literary oeuvres around the world. Reach him on Twitter and
Instagram @prosperifeanyii respectively.
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