Uchechukwu Onyedikam

Ìgbò-highlife music playing back on
the vinyl player, dims the day to night.
Burning the night whilst watching
the candle, wax out old memories
as I straddle mourning and gladdening.

Ever since I left my old man’s village
through Jonah’s eyes —
I have nothing charming sitting yonder
waiting for me to kneel to, and relay how
I couldn’t be at my mother’s white funeral
with eyes bleeding heavily on grief
and the left hand bearing a machete
to split death’s filthy hands…

Faraway from water & blood, but I have
my mother near at hand in the shoreline
of my palm, drawing gaiety of two roses,
awakened her fragile-taken breath.

Hidden in a faraway land where I
break my soul to reach heaven and
tell the angels how it is/feels to be
away from people that look like me
for the place: of the discomfort…
of god instead — his law on my head!
That I carry about like a madman
hawking another man’s prejudice.

Away!
Away!
Away!

I shoo myself away — faraway
where I crip-walk with my shadow
learning her drunken smile, watering
the certainty that I fear to behold;
for The Begotten is nowhere
to be found in this timeless space!

There’s a burning candle at the end
of the tunnel dancing to the flute
of the Piper — swaying its flame
left to right and plumb at attention
collecting taxes from users of the
route — boiling bloods of innocence.

Making the spirit possess itself in
its own way by talking strange language
in a tongue that stirs up lightning
and thunder and fire and water —
and crumbling into the dust covering
the shoes of a lone traveler, juggling
round the cities of men on foot.

Madonna — mother of mercy, minder
of Christ prepare a manger for another
birth, of a star cometh close, crawling up
on us: the one the Jews look beyond!

Look, bend your gaze inward and watch
the watcher chewing rocks and rubble
at the table of lust adorned with greed
from his past tribulation of his share of
hunger for redemption, for salvation,
for his gifting he lost at the toss of
a pair of dice thrown at his face.

This is his sanctuary the place that
broke the bone of his refuge — where
he was chased around naked, beating the
drums of ignorance as he watches his
father’s wife lose herself to him…
in an atmosphere drenched in incense.

1

the huntsmen’s
hasty retreat

cry of the crow
with funeral eyes
unto dust we shall return

2

midnight moon
shivers of her labor
water breaking

the cry of a newborn
in the bush

— Christina Chin (in italics) &
— Uchechukwu Onyedikam