We present this work in honor of the 10th anniversary of the poet’s death.

 

I can still recall their laughter
As they spoke of ‘lost virtue’.
I, Obiajunu
I have learned to live in scarcity.

So, cautiously,
i choose my steps
labouring up the steep hill
bearing on my head
in a clay pot
the spring’s very last drop

but from the bushes
a sweet melody
streams forth
and fills my ears
disarming
tantalising

and the body
is tempted to sway
leading the feet
off the straight path

and the eyes
are tempted to stray
to find the source
the giver of temporal joy

but i must hold fast
my pot of spring water

Though the seller of clay pot
never makes the ‘customer’
though the carrier of clay pot
be the mother of an only son
and though this tune
vibrating in my ears
tempts me to dance
to sway my hips
in unison
with it
beguiling

yet i cannot lose it
this stem
this prop

i have laboured up this hill
through toil and sweat
and i cannot spill it
this water so pure
so clear and sweet
the dying spring’s last drop

i obianuju
i shall provide my children
with plenty
i shall multiply this drop
they will never taste
of the wasted fluid
of the sea

 

Boundless
For when we were
Young and playful,
Our joyous laughter
Rang out echoes through
Every street,
Enlivened by our boundless
Youthfulness.

For when we were
Young and playful,
We would jump buses
Standing or moving,
Ticketless to nowhere
And everywhere,
Knowing no limits,
Knowing no particular
Place to get off.

For when we were
Young and playful,
I met a stranger then,
Caring little about
His looks,
Just being young
Curious and fearless
On a moving empty
London bus,
But for us restless
Young and playful ones,
Filling up, No,
Taking over an
Empty London bus
To make life anew,
Posing, loving us
And strangers in
Boundless youthfulness,
Knowing not,
Caring little
What we were,
What we are
Going to become.

 

In the older photograph
my eyes are two frowning pockets,
and my chest only housed knots and clauses.
I used fast shutter speeds to capture photographs
before sadness spilled into the frame.
I was never one to track progress, but today I did.

Before taking that selfie, I bent the sun
toward my face and poured it into my void
like cement filling the cracks of a wall.
My troubled teenage years lingered in my throat
like a shoplifter in a supermarket aisle.

What a difference 5 years makes, today
my skin is no longer a carousel of masks.
Praises be to a thick syrup of therapy,
a puree of prayer, peelings of coping mechanisms,
a cup of my mother’s honeyed voice.

In the second photograph
the white space is filled with a safe noise.
My shoulders are firm and upward,
my eyes are two glowing pebbles.
Not even an edit can smudge this moment.

 

Before she pressed her wild dusky eyes
the heightened sliced dust inside got out
stroked her brows unadorned, unarmed naked face
stripped to living ecstasy, her wisdoms open again and again
wakening and awakening, penetrating the ears
like gentle very fresh, cool sea water
before she hugged the light of the unreal
displayed like a freshly sharpened knife,
piercing, loud
truly, then the deep like a blade tore open her eyes,
wild, yawning monsters:
came out, raw, below hell, from the cluttered
further down debility of the decay
the first time, replanting her eyes
she saw a little ornament between her limbs, ripening
here the gentle unblemished shelter sat fresh
faraway,
deep at the open, new and green
folding back her quiet door, wakes the
relaxed tree, sparkling with eternal warmth
passing on worlds,
Passing on worlds on the world
where worlds breathe
not perishing self, not worldly worth
not dry leaves,
painted with mud
Low down
Unbending, engendered soundless berry
flood with fog.

Sometimes I wonder
how much longer I shall be here
to bite your hair
with my wooden toothcomb.

I am not afraid
of the freeze of frail fingers;
there is something
romantic about loss.

But I worry about the uneven rhythm
of the diviner’s hand,
the widening waist
that filters sand.

I worry that time
rests its hand on doorknob
and taps the floor
with its iron toe tip.

Somehow,
I must show you
the tricks my mother didn’t teach me;
tell you the tales that never reached me.

But if time will spurn
a mother’s wish
or turn its face away
from a daughter’s need,

remember this, little one:
a life lived well is a wave in flight;
discarded dreams
draw out painful night.