Goodness Tchibueze

What gives breath to this hide,
Reeling off cadences woven in beauty?
Beauty that tickles dancing-tide,
Dancing-tide that sprays a fragrance dusty
...

The sun unsettles the water,
Taking her hot soul
To the calm-adjuring court of heaven,
Where she is appeased with some easement thereat.
...

He is the Unknown
From which the known sprang forth.
He is the Unseen
From which the seen broke forth.
...

It was a shipboard birth, as she sailed westward
On the grey sea, backing the wind.
At the nineth moon of her sail
Came her uneasement:
...

When others were hammering through her,
He chose to brush his way through
Without raising dust motes in the air;
Yet his efforts revolved within whirling shadows.
...

...

Fire can not pass through water
To consume the frogs:
While i was just a frog
Innocent, leaping my happy way;
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Have you not been a regular victim
Of a touch-and-die affair,
Which laps and droops
With every little touch of hurt,
...

Lo, it is almost here at last!
Earth's bowel has burst,
Her muds heave apart.
Not science, not art
...

Wake up thou that slumbereth,
Rise up from thy sleep.
Blessed is he that answereth,
His soul shalt ne'er weep.
...

(i)

A wretched man sat upon a seat
Nigh the fire, as he felt the heat
...

Sky, Sky
Wearing blue and grey,
What will the sun do today?
Will he stay all through the day,
...

Being Two As One
With our diferences won;
Let us be in the fortress of our arms,
Under the shadow of love's charms,
...

There is a world evolving inside you;
A new world which this world is yet to see.
It is evolving in a water-pot in a closet,
A kind of closet that begets light.
...

Come, my friends, and sit at my feet,
So that you may pick from me a word
Or two, tho' centuries past this your fresh-faced environment
Would brighten the surface of your water
...

I will profane your name, Aba, i will denude you
Aba! Aba, your name is tough like an elephant's hide, it is the putrifaction in which the feasting maggots sleep.
Aba, your name is the contraceptive latex littering before the naked eyes of shame and it resembles the veins that run about
Fallen breasts in old age.
...

What needs can a million stars satisfy
In the sight of a gay noonday?
Stars are not just specks of light in the sky
As they may seem to night-time's passers-by.
...

I make Quietude
My creationhood:

At a time when
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When Love is maiden,
Each moment is golden;
From a fountain laid of marble,
Sweet-fragranced flowers bubble:
...

The murmuring of the earth is never dead:
When all the chugging mouths are faint with rust,
And chew some endless cud, a voice will thrust
Pressing our drums; pestering the body and head -
...