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SENTINEL POETRY #29, Online Magazine Monthly, April 2005, ISSN 1479-425X |
TONI KAN ONWORDI
OUR VOYAGE ENDED LONG BEFORE WE SET SAIL
Our voyage ended long before we set sail Like sleep ambushed by nightmares
You were the ground beneath my feet The clump of earth that fixed my rootless passions You were the fertile patch, I took root, I broke earth I blossomed!
You were the rage curled up in the womb of a spark The heat locked in my eager lions You were the fiery tongue Scorching the ears of my longing
Our voyage ended long before we set sail Like a fetus pickled in the womb!
How does love sire hate? How is joy curdled to bile? How can ecstasy beget pain? What hideous alchemy?
These lines flow from the nib Of a pen dipped in blood! A viper, yours was the bared fang That venomed my naked heart
To survive, I fled Like Mohammed fleeing Mecca I took flight at night When the ghosts our dead love Offered no respite I fled here; I found a space, time passed Yet, without you life stretches like A jail sentence
Alone ,like Jonah In the belly of that fish, I smell you: your heat, your sweat, your passion! My life without you intimates me Of the hours that grew long before Saro-Wiwa
Along, all alone, without company My breath festers, I grow haggard Like a laggard, I idle at crossroads My hand falls on the knob And I wonder how I have journeyed To this door that leads nowhere
Shall I cease hither or flee further Beyond this threshold of pain? Shall I stalk the alleys of my mind? Like Cephalus seeking Procris Knowing that pain shall all Too soon eclipse my joy Like a journey ending long before You take the first step.
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