Crisis Poems
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.
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.
......
The Church
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
During the peace of the altar,
Pews knelt down piously;
The pulpit stood and conducted
Peace;
Verdure, rosary and the paternoster
Bloomed;
And the clergy hummed soulfully.
Seasons.
Roars, rasps and hisses of tension
......
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,
......
The Birth of Deluge
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
A fent in the huge, rain-blooded gourd
of heaven pukes Deluge and dirt
upon these lands...
Angry heavens spit violently
downwards, towards hidden collieries of
harlotry — accompanied by Deluge and
white rage — satins of gold-lined thrones
become whited sepulchral flags.
Message from the Cathedral
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Between the altar
and the belfry of the village cathedral,
an ancestral differenceꓽ age-long toll of the bell
and
historic quiet —
all to measure the heartbeat of man
and ascertain the valour in him.
It's wartime, we are sadly reminded!
The sounds of bombs come with both
Heart-cracking noise and necropolis-silence.
......
New Crisis
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
There’s this phrenology we were taught when the
World still had her intestines intactꓽ when the skull mounds
Up on the forehead —the sinciput of grace —
It is a head of crisis.
Like the new moon, a New Crisis has risen above us.
Darkness mumbles loud words, of a swarm of
Ridiculous locusts, which has pillaged our fields,
Harming every single blade,
Runcinated and monstrous to the eyes
......
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,
......
