Goodness Tchibueze

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

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

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

Patchily graded the clean cloud seemed,
Denuding a vast acre of the sky;
The giant, fiery orange emerged esteemed,
Saddling the horizon a little nigh
...

Absence and distance might have kept them,
And the aching of the arms to be warmed, together;
Unmindful of the prominent sun, each faced the other:
A lad and a lass; the sun, inbetween, stood saturninely,
...

From the plains and plateaux
Of the Guinea savannah,
Came, with a calabash loosely
Hanging on her head,
...

I had a girl - Kel:
She was lissom, pliant and pleasing, a gel;
Her sparkling teeth shamed the sun, my angel;
Tho' together in love we were, oft we fell,
...

Come to this, who toll a disconsolate bell...:
Though the Sun upon her youthfulness marches,
Summer's breath oft her leaves smites to arches;
And Weather off course veers in suddenness,
...

Before the elephant breaks the food-speaking drum,
And pestilence heals the land in the next recompensed
Beat; scour the scraps scattered in your minds,
...

Does Worry sleep and wake with the day,
While her trails in the sand of memory lay?
Hearts oft seem to crumple and compress,
And pulsations into the shell of fear retrogress:
...

The nauseating scent
Of mixed blood and mist
Stifled fresh air
From the lungs of Morn,
...

Little did i know that the whirlwind twirled upon my roof...

Drained by duty and the sudorific sun,
I trudged my weary way bare-feeted -
...

For us the journey of Existence starts
With the cut of the blade;
On fours for all.
The pain of ending bothers
...

That our necks may loosen from the leash
And from our masters' grip and treat;
Our youth catch meats,
Our old become meats,
...

Having denuded you in my innermost eyes,
I have toured and explored your state:
The thickness of your feminine territory
Would topple the sovereignity of man
...

The foamy roof of the world
Is one everywhere:
Over the grainy mat
And over the fluidy cellophane;
...

'Sometimes it dulls our senses,
Sometimes it pains our emotions -
What could it be?
Sometimes it overbears our heartbeats,
...

Watching these children
Buried in this war
To loosen from the firm
Grip of contraction
...

The cloud was fast gathering and
She had sat there
For a too taut time,
On the lip of the promontory
...

We chose to be teachers,
And not to be misers.
The glory of our work
Is vaster than our purses,
...