Tony-Cemaluk Egbuonu Poems

Nkea na amamu ahu jijijiji,
ikedo mu na nmazi uzo di n'okpulu ugbo mmili anyim,
Obulugodu na aga afu mu,
ha ga afu na mmmili agbagbugo mu.
...

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

Whenever; wherever compromise is common, as accommodated dump sites in living abodes, unlike uncommon common sense; : never can they, the minority, keep promise.
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WHAT is this?
Wood.
What is it,
Where you came from?
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GREAT mother of mothers most memorable. Mother;
Of Festac-like festivals; of astute kings from old to new all nebulous; of great warriors, the likes of the retaliators.

Mother;
...

EARLY into the night, as usual, the village and the villagers were engulfed in a solid-black darkness; everyone, almost, went early to visit the abused and moaning mat bed. Some outside, in a state of indescribable ennui, were, as others, on the moaning mat bed bemoaning fate resigned and faith lost, as they gazed unto the sky in her magnificence.

The sky, a splendid sight to behold, was as a sharpened spiteful site for saddened souls. Her silvery, bluish colours, magnified by the contrasting intense darkness, depicted a typical unenergized village of villagers of forgotten folks close to third and second tier governments.
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BEFORE the outing and the outcome of the five civil court helmsmen of justice simmer and cool off;
Behold the supplications of the supplicants, the forebears.

Ukpaka Oto deeje;
...

CONTINUE your whisperings in hushed voices; I did and did not want to hear right, or ask questions or request clarifications. Lest, the mother would overhear the ultimate answer; the ultimate response, and pack up and go. Wished she should not, and whenever she does, know of this to stay; this total eclipse, of the moon and of the sun and of the stars, till everything that stood still would stir, cease to be static and start to move. It could turn out a dream or a drama if, though, I were a somnambulist and he was an actor. But a bus came carrying a casket.

Tears, not unlike boiled water for tea, flowed, as fuelled flood from raging rain storm; that, likewise, couldn't be controlled 'till the storm stopped. I cared the less that the tears like flood would soon ran out and dry. Who is in there, by the way? Chai, Chekwube-Chukwu, my dear lone brother was in there. Be brave and brunt but not brutal to tell me what happened to you. As, you can see, I have ran out of tears; no more tears to shed and the present choking tremor, like earthquake, will soon pass away.
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ALREADY have many,
Of them, a whole lot.
Don't want any more.
Visible and invisible,
...

My sister, dear
Death, last time there
Rejected you then
In His name
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HOUSE of mansions
Offices and tables
My file,
Please open
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