Sentinel Poetry #35 – October 2005

Online Magazine Monthly…since December 2002 ISSN 1479-425X

Uche Nduka

Lost In The Rain

Lost in the rain

And the wild wind

gloom couldn’t be gloomier

for his dark-eyed son

And what could he do

When even the song of the poet

had gone homing to a graveyard

And gamblers had gathered

And howlers had gathered

with pricking dirges

for his black-eyed son

As rainbows branded the sky

And fury gutted the street

And hours harvested bones

Dawn emptied his drawers

Emptied him of friends

Pelted him with loss

In the town of a one-eyed king

And the graveyard was a shrine

for the bleeding light

In the song of the poet

Apotheosis

I trail limb after limb

of destiny,

acts, hexes

within a hand's breath:

now you know the griefs,

riddles,

temptations of questing

needles,

here in the sweep of my arm.

Like You

Like you,

a leaf of bramble

gives itself away,

meets space,

enters the orbit,

descends,

returns to a stem,

and me,

FOREVER.

But Again The Distracting Fingers

But again the distracting fingers

the importunate gestures

again the hawkers of the hype

of a good death.

I will sleep and wake

sleep and wake

till sleeping and waking are one

and speech wheels off,

sings,

as waters rove

and waters rove once more.

Dreams Drive Us Like Cars

If you ever find your words slowing down

when your will is coming down

let me be the one near to wait on you

for my loyalty is overdue.

A prayer I will wheel to you

a feeling that rhymes with you

a pledge that sings,

bliss that happens without lip-synch.

Dreams drive us like cars.

I shine from your soul

to the crown of your body.

I script your secret play.

I see you in every woman I see;

a pound of earth, a harvest of clouds.

Your Face Proves Reason Shallow

Your verse tongues the nipples

of my prose. I drink from the cup

of your laughing body.

With kisses

the beat of love frees us:

we can't hold still,

the frug unhooks our restraint.

In plenitude of gladness

I bare my bones to your tenderness.

Better to lie against

a clockwork, a keystone:

your face proves reason shallow.

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