FRANK EZE - POEMS

Frank Eze resides in Owerri, Eastern Nigeria. His work has appeared in Praxis, Gnarled Oak, Antarctica Journal, Brittle Paper, COAL and many other journals of art. He won the 2016 edition of the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize. He strives to give life a meaning through poetry.

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EVEN THE WATER WON'T TAKE US 
​

​for Aylan Kurdi and other refugees the water rejected
 
a flicker of light
and home became
a fireplace
 
and the ground we played on
grew too hot
peeling the soles
of our tiny feet slowly, slowly
as fingers on epicarp
of tangerines
 
and we listened
for the voices of songbirds
that sing us to sleep
when fatigue eat into our bones greedily
as termite in unpolished wood
and our eyelids grow heavy
as shoulders of labourers bearing blocks
 
and met thunder
the eery guest at crossroads
where our tiny fingers
sought refuge scratching
the hands of peace like
blind banjoists working their banjorines
as men and women nod and toss
a coin or two on sunlit days
and hurry on to catch flighty life
on its tail, at least
 
and the fires won't give up their flames
or the thunders their claps
and our tiny feet won't stand anymore
on our soil, the heat at home
or our ears carry the chaos
the thunder in our air
 
 
​and we cried out--
mother, father, girl, boy--
as chickens locked in
a burning ban
to brothers across the road
to sisters across the river
 
and they heard us
thought our voices euphonious
plunging neck deep
into highlife
 
and we ran away from home
gazelle gaited
limbs heavy grazing ears
to the waters
whose unsteady face beamed
a benign smile
to its mothy guests
spread its arms in embrace
and in the safety
of its watery bosom, tossed
us deep into its belly and cast us
ashore as abandoned dolls
leaving on our tongues
eonian taste of its saline soul
 
 
 

​IN THE FEET OF A REFUGEE II​

​Internally Displaced Persons Camp, Bukuru, Jos, April, 2016. 
 
I live in the feet of a refugee
in the cold blood-dripping lines
laced like a lonely labyrinth;
 
In the tainted toes maimed
by a mine that made mince meat
of its owner's mama, her blood
a red rain in memory;
 
I live in every step away from home:
rubbles, a red river brimming its bank,
a peerless plantation of bombs,
of blades, of blaring guns;
 
I live in the feet of a refugee
in the fading memories of home
when peace had her limbs unbroken.
 
 
 
 

LIFE IN OUR GARDEN 
​

i
 
morn
 
an african lily bares its soul
gently gently to a nascent sun
shaking off all dew droplets
as it rips apart its calycine robe
like an aphrodisized maiden
 
ii
 
noon
 
and so was beauty born
at the symphony of smiling sun
and bare-breasted lily at its bloom
 
iii
 
even
 
and the sun sets
suddenly seeking shelter
behind blue clouds
 
behold african lily
fall freely from its stalk—wilted,
washed with such mirth melancholic--
landing, blending with the bland-brown:
 
dust.
 
 
 

STAY
​

for Laura Oreva
 
stay, stay a little more
 
do not become the sun
that sets at rising, painting
on the face of the sky
a dark, dark scurvy smile
 
do not die to live the fate
of morning stars passing
as fancies dusting off
the dark with their little lives
 
so stay, stay amaranthine
 
be the candle out in the cold
whose flame flickered
whose tears never dried up
till it weathered the wind
 
live, live a bar of candy
in tongue rolling & melting
& leaving in every heart, taste
of your deathless sweetness

​