Ike Anya
Ikechuku Anya is an MSc student of the Infectious and Tropical Diseases Department, London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. This medical doctor with a deep love of reading and the arts co-founded the Abuja Literary Society.
View all Entries by Ike AnyaENCOUNTER
(for the lady(?) at Koko Bar)
Slender softly swaying sylph
Stopped by me to get a light
For cigarette dangling
From glistening scarlet lips
Voice vibrant, promising she purred
Throwing a challenge, daring
Me to make a plunge into her abyss
Declining, I lit escaping untouched
By her scorching fire.
FOR NICHOLAS
To you who quickened
My faltering footsteps
Firming the staccato
Of hands on taut drumskin
Bringing welcome release
Rhythm and life
My gratitude
Always
ORANGE HAWKER
Large round tray delicately
Balanced on slender neck
Budding breasts thrust out
In defiance of lusty stares
Snake-like hips swaying
in rhythmic abandon
a subtle invitation sent
Softer, yet louder than your cry
'Ooorange....sweeeeeeeeet oraaaaange!'
ONE NIGHT BY THE LAGOON
(for A and perhaps for B who without knowing it shared the experience)
I traverse the vast, the unending wasteland
And journeying remember the bliss of our embrace
Amidst strewn rocks and pebbles I seek
a drop of freshening moisture
Still parched I recoil
The question pounding
Within my shrunken fevered skull
Tasting once the nocturnal dew of heaven
Can I ever live on earth again?
KURAMO WATERS
Vast expanse of space
Extending to infinity
Where sea meets sky in eternal embrace.
Your endless calm broken only
By waves crashing in rhythmic sequence
In foamy effervescence against the whiteness
Of your pale sandbar
Ripples skim across your cool surface
In endless, timeless, ageless rhythm.
Calm breezes blow salt tinged and whisper
Of the delights of an unfettered existence
All-pervading, all-investing they enfold
Our hearts and minds
In lasting peace
Rhythms from within
Play me like the goje, pluck
At my heartstrings
For deep within reside
Melodies of vast versatility
Thump me like the ekwe
That I may produce
A deafening roar drowning the madness of these present times.
Like the shekere rattle me gently
Let the steady staccato of bead against gourd
Recount step by step the follies that brought us here
Like the wooden xylophone strike me
That my myriad bars may tell
Of a joy surpassing all present sorrow
Then like the kakaaki sound me
That I may yield
A wail, poignant and true
Testimony to hope and brighter dawns.
