A land I cannot call home?
A man I cannot call my father?

I was 6 when he first kissed me

By the time I was 9
years old his hand
knew every road

      Every turn of hills,
Leafs and tall branches
                           Of that tree
                that was my body.

He is not my father
He is my mother’s husband

Every time a wayfairing water-lilly ride a turbulent water wave to the riverside
And when rainfalls...
from a sun shine

Every time you walk by the graveyard and see a new flower sprout
to life

In the ebbing of rivers
in songs of early dawn birds that bear their happiness to the streamside  

You shall see
That I Am
not dead!

Believe all you want about a holy communion
Prayerfully eat flesh...
Wet your tongue with the blood 🩸 of a dead 💀 God! ....

I rode the road of his memories
Through long-racked hours
Many days into the dust-covered place
of our forgotten years.

When he first came
Into my life, I recall,
something drenched, the blasted impact of a talkative rainfall
out there...
I wasn't  as much concerned.
That wasn't really
my style!

When i first met him,
He was not so taller than I am.
Just 6ft tall!
but over time,
The freely flying apparition of a man cut-loosed
from the dictating whims of his casual edges, he's  grown
so tall towering higher entwined
about me like a climbing plant - Cobaea scandens!!

Honestly
I never liked him at first glance
He had this nasty smile about him
That irresistible charm of a thousand waterfalls
falling pure from a heart full of love
which I still find difficult to resist every time (he smiles)
Everything else seems to sink in a pool of waters and I forget who I am.

In your eyes I have seen life and I have witnessed death.
The death that I must die if i do not love you.
The life that I never had without you!

Dear God that created heaven and earth
And set the colours on the feathers of birds
Dear God who knows tomorrow
And points the water waves in the direction it should go

Dear God of my forefathers...
You whose voice aflames the heavens with a clap of shattering thunders
Or cry when you may seasonally in startled sizzling showers
You are my God, i have no other.

Dear God who formed my being from dust
And made me rich whilst i was but poor, undone
In grace and in the gift of your gracious love
I am most humble to wash in your preciuos blood!

You who speak and the sea is stilled
Or decree a thing and it cometh to be.

A daylight painted in a night shade
In the circle of a thunderous grumble...

'you have hid your beautiful self under
beautiful clothes'.

But then, I saw she spoke to no one.
Near the quiet
pathway which separated us from spirits  
at the market
where three paths dance in direction of the gods.. .

Ah!
Aziza danced up dust to his sacred being
Magnified by the quiet presence
of the pathways.
She spoke again,

'good for you
You have hid yourself
Under the restful shade of earth'.

When I could see she was dressed
as the unbeautiful look
seated by some flesh of,
swollen earth,
I Knew
suddenly.

A daylight vanishing to her peaceful rest
In the circle of a thunderous grumble
I staring with her
at Silence...

Beautiful flowers grew from behind the house
Where never a flower once grew.

The wonder was my troubled mind tossed in a long wave of troubled waters....

for never a flower grew in my father's backyard
as impressively green
to a flourish of protruding beaus of freshly upturned earth.

Perhaps thee beautiful flower that sprouts
From earth in father's backyard is father
Painting flowers on his own piece of  earth.

Unbeautiful you death.

1
There is nothing left here
But undesired dust of
The many memories of us
I do not desire to leave you
But I do desire to be free
My lover
As of a rushing mighty caress
Of the odorous sea wind
2
There was secret under your eyelids
The secret of your
Unquenched love for me
There was fire under your eyelids
I melted at every glance
In the heat
Of your
Unquenched love for me

In haste...
Behind
Our footprints
Were the scattered emptiness
Of the memories
Of them
On the shores

She left the three parties of us
Me, Samantha
And our traveler friend

They were play things for sunset fares,
She said.

Just yesterday
They were happy to be here
The young flowers now scattered about
This beach shore
Too young to be plucked
Happy to grow up into one party of laughter!

That's how we remember they were here
That's how to plant graveside flowers
For the dead
They were play things for sunset fares

They were not soldiers
They were unprotected women
They were not warriors
They were unfed afraid Biafran children  

That's how to plant graveside flowers
That's how we have kept them forever
In our hearts
That's how we actualize Biafra.