Two poems by Nwuguru Sullivan Chidiebere

Sermon on the pun

If tiger wood rise
After the fall of the jungle
Then tell me why cocoons of unclad hope
Will be too tired like a bicycle
To run on a sloppy lane,
When bloody photographers come shooting at everyone?

If life is a loan,
Tell me why getting it alone
Will never happen without receiving death as a discount?
Or must every Abel be Cained
For every truth he disguised
And every tackle on dreams counted up to ten-tacles before realisation?

If parents would pay rents
To secure spots for their wards on earth
Then, is there sense in guarding unseen god
When moments utter heavy sermon
And when clock tic-talk in croaky cadence
About every belief that wrestled with our conception?

If beauty could be trusted
As the true criteria for good look
Then, do we know at all
That beauty also lies in the eyes of the beholder?
And has no truth to tell when confronted behind close doors
On why every Egyptian child has a mummy?

If we had left for the right in time
Our lives would not be dipped in a well to be well spent
Or our chattered relationship dying unemployed
Because it never worked in the first place.
For no matter how thin we make our art seem
Art-is-tic always.

Sound from the gong of liberby

Watch my fingers and this stick they behold
As I strike this gong on this glaring night,
When I tasted the libation of liberty that art gives.
In the past, I was chained to the rod of untanned feelings,
And in every moment, ideas in my head
Raced in Brownian motion,
But none resulted in effective collision.

Most times the captivity escalated to melancholy
That burnt in righteous desperation
Craving for a soothing hand that will nurse their delivery,
And their sting sank steadily beneath my nerve.
But how do I bake ideas into edible loaves without oven?
‘Well, I just got a pen and arranged a convention for it with a paper,
And my ideas turned into tributaries of art’.

See, if in my attempt to tell the tale of the world
I become too personal, rude and poignant,
With my ink scratching your eyes
Like chloroquine does on the skin,
Do not boil me in the steam of rage,
For the boys who beaded pride
Shoved pains also, underneath their armpit.

Hence, to the eyes, ears and mouth of souls
I ask:
How else do one eat the fruit of liberty
If not riding on the wings of flawless art
Crowned with crimson of poetry?

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