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Shores of Memory: Poems by Angela Nwosu

SHORES OF MEMORY

“Time is an ocean, but it ends
at
the shore”

Bob Dylan

  • I surf through the shores
    of my soul
    browsing memory
    with hands
    ready to embrace
    the blurring landscapes of our dreams
    but the ghost of
    the darkness comes
    on line
    And shango’s promise of light
    becomes a
    joking thunder tumbling under
    the vanity of babel
    ..Still I wait up till
    the grey hours
    hoping for mother’s nipple to sprout milk
    but I see forty
    decades of engorgement
    I see the horizon lined with leaking plates
    naked
    for a coin or two
    overnight, plastic flowers grow in potholes
    a trick
    for the future podium…
    I choke and choke under the heavy darkness
    but
    if being still means the resurgence
    of bitter pain, let mc be a whirlwind

    of freedom.

    II
    Across the road
    I pick pieces of my history

    scattered under trampling feet
    My siblings swim through great torrents

    to escape a country tall with oil wells
    my brother the poet is
    now a
    saint of poverty eating snow
    Sister in Italy; my tongue is incapable of
    disowning you
    I only hope you dance, soon, the lament of illusion.
    This
    giant is a colossus of mirages
    A budha without the promise of nirvana
    A
    melting sun
    but this giant shaped me into a vision
    this budha is the sum
    total of my reality
    this sun is my warmth
    how then can we keep failing
    our ancestors
    by throwing away our skin
    on the slab of a centered
    madness…
    In my scattered history I am yet to laugh with
    careless
    abandon, but if all was Cotton – white
    what will be the meaning of our
    redeeming
    Creation?

    III
    …But how can I fly miles in the clouds

    only to end up washing dead bodies
    and paying bills?
    At the crossroad,
    I see my pain and my beloved
    At the crossroad, I see dollars and cold
    machines
    My beloved giant has turned me into
    a viral citizen
    Yet I
    dream of a telescope that will
    exalt my invisibility in the future of
    light
    Aha, a slow dance is rising from my bowel
    I maybe a circle of
    zeros
    a dot of silence
    but I feel the power of ascenslon
    I am also a
    miracle of calvary
    I see the eyes of my beloved light up
    the
    darkness.
    I dare the wind
    I leap into your presence!

    IV
    We must
    walk together
    to behold the path of great dawns…
    We gather at the
    healing tables
    ready to loose our tongues in the
    wine of sisterhood
    At
    the witness box, atrocities
    compete for visibility
    Lawyers debate the
    dialectics
    of a soaked handkerchief
    At the highplaces monsters become mere

    mortals of incoherence
    And our martyrs
    converge in sad
    heroism
    lighting tomorrow with their sainthood.
    We must learn to seek
    together
    now that our mornings rise to the sky
    now that our ancestors blow
    the charm of unity
    we must learn to put our tongues
    into one lip…
    I
    surf through the shores of memory
    And I behold an unfolding joy
    for which
    I become a child of void
    striving for the indifference
    that will unite
    all differences.

————————

C O N F L I C T

  • …But Eden broke apart
    filling my head with cyclones
    and
    questions
    The tower of heaven
    became a babel of tongues
    burying my
    answers in the
    footprints of unborn memories
    the garden left Eden
    and
    nature became several channels of deconstruction…

    I salute the
    Rain
    that nurtures the womb of life
    Yet I find scattered screams
    in the
    flood of California
    Yet the embers of our grief
    Still glow under the
    rivers of Ejirin

    I embrace the sun-center of Energy
    But must my
    sisters in India whither from your heat waves?
    Must my brothers in Kano lose
    their necks in the gripping fever
    of meningitis?
    And is the oasis enough
    for the deserts?

    How can I comprehend the hatred
    of disease-filled
    viruses?
    Are they songs of an inner Atlantis
    or notes from the ark of
    Noah?

    Eden broke apart
    and I hear whispers in the forest of my
    dreams;
    I am one of one
    one of many
    one of all.

Angela Amalonye Nwosu
Angela Amalonye Nwosu
Angela Amalonye Nwosu has worked as a teacher, a book editor, a romance writer, a freelance journalist, and a literary critic. “Feminique,” a column she maintained in the Sunday Vanguard (a prominent Nigerian newspaper) for four years, was devoted mainly to issues concerning women. She has published a collection of poems, Waking Dreams. Nwosu currently lives in Denver, Colorado. 

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