*Tony Cemaluk Egbuonu Poems

Nkea na amamu ahu jijijiji,
Ikedo mu na nmazi uzo di
n'okpulu ugbo mmili anyim,
...

PROMISE not pounded yam when you can't
pound pounded yam; worst, under oath,
when you can, but compromise instead to pound cocoyam.
...

The children were busy all morning
picking the African pears he knocked down.

Nze lachaa otogbo odu ya —
...

We didn't fight.
We just died.

I died in you.
...

Age Four

Standing bicycle.
*krrrr krrrr* backwards.
...

Sobbing, I went to meet my Dad,
Chief EzeMalukwuo,
in the in-house stall where he was shelving goods.
He had just come back from Onitsha.
...

My temperamental disposition manifested early
and my dad, Chief Ezemalukwuo Nwoye Egbuonu cut it in the bud.

Whenever it manifested my dad would cool me down.
...

After the long storm.

At the height of a rite of passage,
he sounded the ancestral horn.
...

The war just ended.

At the peak of a great cultural initiation celebration,
he brought forth his father's voice —
...

My father was a subsistence farmer. Mounds were ready.
We were to plant yams.

My task was to prepare Ukpo -
...