Kay Ugwuzor

YONDER I sometimes wonder The way we carry on Forgetting life yonder Where all we have will be gone I sometimes wonder If the rain would fall On one and not another If pain doesn’t greet all I sometimes wonder If not in vain saints live and die And not in vanity and squander Opposing to wine and dine I sometimes wonder If dreams are not far-fetched Some sort of fictional blunder Yet we stand with our hands outstretched. I sometimes wonder If we did not get it wrong That life is cruel and death is fonder For to her we so often belong.  (c) Kay Ugwuzor 2016

The Tomb of Amani It lay in a sarcophagus in the vault of memory, surrounded by piling skeletons of free-thought fighters. In this tomb of regret, the debris of democracy piles up, each pile a generation of pain older than the pile beneath. Rumour is that only through death can one reach it… It lay in the tomb of regrets at the end of the memory lane, buried deep inside the heart of a dark continent, guarded by the phantoms of Lumumba and the pharaohs, whose silence through the ages compose black anthems of freedom in the idiom of a prison continent. Rumour is that only through resurrection can one preach it.. -  JKS Makokha JKS Makokha is the Kenyan author of Reading M. G. Vassanji: A Contextual Approach to Asian African Fiction. (2009). He teaches courses in African and South Asian Literatures at the Institut für Englische Philologie at Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. From african-writing.com

Let me tell you a story A boy goes to the river. He dances at the bank of it, allowing the water to gently crawl on his legs, pouring sand between his toes and running back. He loves the chill and the motony of it. He falls in love with the river and the way the orange sun fell behind it in the evenings. He wanted to swim. He wanted an intimate relationship with the river. To travel up and down its body, caress it through and through till he knew every detail of it and it's sweet scent. Yet he feared the river. He feared because he had heard tales of men who had gone in and never swam out. Whom the river, in its beauty had taken away to unknown lands. He would look at the river and see it calm, sober and welcoming but at the thought of going in, the river roared. The boy feared the river and yet, he loved it. I am that boy and you are the river. R ifts I cannot see beyond the smoke screen and the fog that is in your eyes I cannot, somehow, convince you of the power of love an...

Say What You Need To Say By Ugwuzor Kay Is there anything you want to say Before we look one last time to turn away? Any thoughts you want to share Perhaps some deed, to clear the air? Could there be anything, hiding? Underneath thin covers, residing? Beyond this fence between us? Too high to scale, too wide to cross? There were emotions we so longed denied They asked, we looked away, shy, sly and lied Short moments when our eyes clicked Our spirits lighted like a switch flicked We have had wordless conversations Tinged with quiet reservations Misconstrued  arguments And unspoken compliments We have passed messages in secret Describing feeling that were concrete Were there letters that were never sent? Give them to me now, for I it was meant? It could be we won't meet again Don't let these walls close and we remain Strangled with feelings that never shone And become hard like this wall, like this stone If ever my words did turn you on If my touch did ...

This Love Is No More by Kay Ugwuzor So this love is No more the fantasies No more about us No more the item we were Whatever that was This love is No more passions to fill the night No more ‘baby, please hold me tight’ No more ecstasy rising from inside Capturing moments with guilt aside This love is No more than silence here and there No more than smoke hanging in air No more than unsaid verses and lines And your overflowing bag of lies This love is No more than the word No more than spilt blood No more than broken alabaster Far from a happily ever after So this love is No more ... It wasn’t my fault, it was his. It has always been his. He pushed me, he put my back to the wall and I pulled the trigger. It had always been because of him; whenever I brushed my hair in front of the mirror it was because of him, when I snuck out of the house at night, it was because of him. When I went to the boutique two days ago, it was to get him this bright colored Gucci ...

Love Is Not Worth The Trouble I am your friend Yet you'll watch me descend I love you Yet you won't want me above you Of what good is love If it still kills you? Your friendship is like what? A spittle in the dust A puff of smoke in a storm A message on the beach Washed away by the retreating tide Love is not worth the trouble If it still drags me to the rubble Love is not worth the stress If it leaves me in distress (C) Kay Ugwuzor 3-1-2015

Society would always need someone to blame It seems no one has any fault to claim Fingers point this way and that When push comes to shove then its tit for tat People are always right in their own sight Its hard to see a black goat in the night Truth is tainted with lies Good is tinted with wiles One's greatest wisdom is another's foolishness One's farthest vision is another's shortsightedness As faces differ so are attitudes different You have what you prefer so don't resent Dry skeletons grace spray painted cupboard Four fingers point to you before one points forward Unbalanced account stained with red letter You say everyone is worse? You're not any better Kay Ugwuzor 23/12/2014

Once upon a pun I stumbled upon an urn I saw my future A bold bright picture It made my eyeballs burn There I starred a star A bright and shooting star To light the sky And fly so high Make gravity look bizzare I swore to live the dream To the fullest, to the brim To be the best To beat the rest To be the crème dela crème I know Not only I have seen His future on a screen Who wants to be what he can be Though the world may not agree I know my future is so green