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

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 ...

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

Love is not for me, tufia kwa. I'm not going to fall in love. Not like Uncle Sam and that girl he always called ‘Obim’. Every time she came around she would wrap herself in him and they would whisper whatever into each other’s faces with their legs interlocked and their hands hung over their shoulders while leaning on his car outside. She would wear a very broad smile on her small face. Anytime I remembered her now that was the way I saw her, a big broad pretend smile. Uncle Sam quarreled with Mama over this girl ‘she has bewitched you’ Mama said when Uncle told her he wanted to marry Ada. ‘Mama, I love this girl so much and she loves me too, it is not a matter of being under a spell or anything of that sort’ Uncle Sam would answer in his educated accent. He chose not to speak Igbo with us after he came back from the University. Whether he did so to prove we were all illiterates or he was just used to speaking English, I didn’t know and didn’t bother to ask when he took ...

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