in parentheses

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah is a graduate of English and Law. He is fond of speaking to himself and writes poetry whenever a fly buzzes in his ears. His poems have been featured and will soon be featured in Atticus Review, Ariel Chart, Boomer Literary Magazine, Compass Rose Literary Magazine, Discretionary Love Magazine, Ephemeral Literary Review and elsewhere. He is a winner of the Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest 2022.

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Flower War

The life of flowers whirls in a tracery
where each branch is caught in a twirl
of a clarinet blowing up its lyrics;
where the wind pushes itself up
the wall of daisies and cherries;
where the faint ecstasy of leaves
wears worry like a sheath of grey hair,
as tulips decouple from the air
to become the first to be kissed by the sun;
sometimes too high the daffodils climb
upon the sloppy wall of the clouds
to mate with the prickly stars
and send the night whirling away.
It doubts, not its immense ability
to beat the records the Magnolia sets
and thrill as the wildest heart of all.
They are quick to argue to the sky
that the stars scramble for a tiny space
to place their light and illuminate the world;
there is room for the moon and the sun;
watch the clouds settle for spaces
against the clear walls of Heaven.
I will be a rose in my garden,
against a galaxy of warring peaches,
lilies, orchids, hibiscuses and daffodils,
against the sudden trace of sunflowers,
the greener daisies, waiting for us to fall.
I will be standing tall in this garden,
raising my leaves to the burring sky
with neither the strength to rush
nor the fear to scramble for survival,
my body wearing the unravelling
of the whirling of the night, where I live
to redeem the day when darkness falls.

Fear

If you were a marl
please let me be the millet
and I would grow thicker than a wall,
overwhelming the evil embrace,
I would drink your breath
with no avian sickness,
no blackbird fluttering around;
your love is my feast;
so, there will be no eclipse
and the apocalypse can wait.

The day is but a ravished light
a fulcrum of feathers,
a moment of madness,
the sinking of life, like paper,
pivoted through rocks,
an ineluctable disaster.
All is light death,
as the planet self-sinks,
and dark is the plunge,
an avalanche, a wizard’s robe,
a pit of hopelessness,
where no light sneaks in
and flowers wilt as buds,
where no wind rustles
and each stone is armed
with a sniper’s bullet.

If you were the marl, love,
oh, please let me be the millet
sprouting from you like a tulip
flourishing in the wilderness.
In you, there is hope without despair,
love without thorns,
faith without misery.

Summer Solstice

I stare at you with a scale,
your body leaving your soul,
like trees shedding leaves;
I see the wonders of perfection
like the sun on a pool of puddles,
yet I marvel at how down you are.

If I were on your toes,
gold nails poking out
gold patterns gleaming bright,
I would carry water in a basket
and eat a bowl of rice
from a broken groundnut shell.

I would walk with a pool of pride,
that lingers till the end of a year,
the stars and the sun gazing
when I stroll past their shades,
their tongue lashing out
at your long, golden hair.

Hence, I come to you
to tell you of my love,
not because you are exceptional,
a perfunctory miracle of time,
but that you’re the perfect atlas
of a body stolen from a dream

My Sister’s Teeth

My sister’s teeth line up her mouth
like a smear of vanilla ice cream;
or as if her lips wear white paint;
and her cheeks sprinkle with every smile;
language fails her, but she reflects light,
the sun cradles the tresses of glass,
or makes love with the mirror;
when she laughs, as she often does,
to stop the night from getting dark,
her shoulders sink like a wind-swept tree;
and my sigh climbs up the walls of the sky.

My sister’s face is a watermelon;
a crowd of cherries in summer,
relished when the hands of the sun
have stretched out beyond their contractions;
she has a mind for fireworks,
to set ablaze the coldest streams and rivers,
forcing them to sparkle with hope
and kick out the sneaky threads of despair;
my sister is an unstoppable flicker of kindness,
but this lies in her uncharted laughter
with which she makes every beginning eternal.

Looking at her face one day, I shrink my folly,
which creates beauty in others’ eyes,
ignoring the glistening milk in her mouth,
the only connection between her and me,
in which all our differences become blurring lines;
we have come to know the meaning of joy,
though in the middle of life, we lost our teeth,
but my sister’s teeth have never left her mouth,
though she falls on the hard ground like a fired shot.
Out of her set of glistening teeth, she creates wonder,
and declares that it is the meaning of relief.

Someone Loves You

Are you distressed up to your bones,
disappointed, despairing, disillusioned?
Has life refused to cut you slack?
Your bread is rock; your water is grey;
you fight against invisible invaders,
I know that someone loves you.

Sometimes you raise your heart high
but the sun refuses to shine;
or when your dreams echo in the sky,
their landing is soft and undetectable;
the same net kidnaps a thousand fishes
returns empty and broken in your hands.

Sometimes you imagine taking the plunge,
when time is a popsicle offered on thorns;
you toy with eternity and disinfect your memory,
with the anguish plaguing your brain like Perspex;
the air is a brick and betrays no proof of life;
sometimes you imagine your head inside the noose.

Love recedes from you like a distant star,
hugging the sterile sky with vacuous eyes;
and you feel like you are under surveillance,
as every footstep squeaks like a guillotine.
Do not be afraid of taking up your life,
it’s good you know that someone loves you.

You cannot have your eyes everywhere,
and know when love watches from a distance;
it sends lumps of air snowballing your way,
to hit you when you are slumping and dying;
when everything seems to be lost and gone,
that’s when you realise that someone loves you.

Stir not your brew of life
when you are distraught or depressed,
to leave a flaw floating around your moans
is the whole duty of your creation;
the cradle of beauty is the misses of life,
yet it strives to outshine them all.

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