Chukuemeka Akpe Poems

Ancient customs girded the Harbinger of Death
In loin cloth, hairy barrel chest and a husky voice.
Taboo is deaf to the hip-swinging trump of death,
Scowling and seething at all infringing trespassers.
...

I.

The dressage of all these mares and stallions
Never fails to hold the world in rapt attention
...

A pantheon of moulded images
Figurines of gold with clay feet
Pottered in a frenzy of adulation
Hailed in theatres of absurdities.
...

Accolades of Acolytes dance across banners to gongs,

drums and cheers.
...

Freedom fighting days are decades over
Yet the spectre of oppression looms still:
Quondam hero, the villain now.
The people are clubbed for their choices
...

The epileptic flashes, billows of raucous metals
Molten power-houses, tendrils of smoke in a glass…
A stale age trapped in a whirling orb of freshness,
Its time slothfully ticking behind the other times.
...

Long before the curtains parted
machinations and assassinations
heralded the much vaunted drama.
...

I.

Dawn to Dusk
they chase after buses
...

Out of sight
from prying dignitaries
this sprawling estate of corrugated
huts and floating bamboo mansions
epitomizes our miniaturized Soul.
...

N inety flagship years now unfurled
mapped with the isolations of grief
wrinkled joy of a colourful dream.
...