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Refine Brain Drain
On the edge of a day
when the sun was retreating
from the advancing army of darkness,
a boy and a woman
mounted the shore keeping vigil for the ship.
The lips of the mother were vibrating in strength.
The prayers gushing out of her mouth
were flooding the sea more and more. As if to say
the water needs no debris
of the blessings poured on the son,
it was growing steadily.
In a swift my mind went back to the faded years
when a man leaves the world of living
and cycles to the other end. The weeping lovers
will be doing the work to evoke him back. Assuming
he makes a U-turn, all tears dry up,
you will be entertained with a marathon
of heels burning with fear.
That was a chink of the condition on the shore.
A mother’s wish: her children to pierce
through the rafters of a hard world
and brace the journey to a more fertile page
where their golden pencil
will create a world of their own.
But when the legs step out
the sad heart that will miss the son would like to cage him in the ribs.
Had it not been for chaos
looming in politics,
why will a boy call home
the mouth of a snake
and tilt to a direction
that water leads to?
Chronicle of Forced Steps
The last time I glided through the pages of history, I saw figures of screams bellowing. Mixed feelings clutched me in a tight corner. In the middle of the red chapters, women heavy with sorrows were polishing the soils of their fatherland with the soles of their fidgeting feet. Their mind carted away into the endless sea of hopelessness. Faces were bereft of smiles. If there was a cause for joy they would have danced – shake their waist better than the women of Zulu. But there's none. The joy was squeezed. Maimed. Cremated in the land that their eyes may never behold. At a corner of the night colored past, a man tattooed with scars of fear was rusting with the chains on his hands. He was fading away. Little by little. His wide eyes were blazing with flames – not the one that shocks the tender hands of toddlers from a lamp nor the one that prepares bitter-leaf soup in the old kitchen of Granny. They were furious flames – shooting out bullets that wailed a thousand meanings: get out of here! I’m not going anywhere! Leave me! How this heart decapitated of freedom still stood at the edge of life? Counting the number of suns that will shimmer his dark dry skin with the tip of his dead tongue. He must have looked into the gloomy sky to see the flocking feathers of vultures painting the sky in a spiral movement. Waiting for their game to be ripe for devouring. Gentle prayers must have hooked his lips– that white coven for forced journey does not touch his children. Even at these, he still staggered with his fellows. Swaying like a hungry orange tree in the sea of rushing winds. His crops lying buried in his farms must be shouting his name. Wet cheeks from lovers at home must keep hitting his mind. But the strength to follow the mind’s will is dead. The trail on the fertile land through which they trespassed will not come again.
Paschal Ezeokafor, born in Ekwulobia, Anambra State, Nigeria, is a pharmacy student at Nnamdi Azikiwe University. He is a winner of the African Giants Award in poetry. Connect with him on Facebook via Ezeokafor Paschal, on Instagram and Twitter (X) via @pc_ezeokafor, or WhatsApp on +234 816 089 0516.
