All around me I see the faces that are hurting
I hear the hearts splintering under the weight of your betrayal
Everything once shared fast withering into nothingness
Visions of a future with you teetering on the precipice of expulsion
I feel the trust – once so priceless – disintegrating
Fragments of it blowing away with the wind
I perceive the desperation to believe in your goodness
Warring with the righteousness to shrink from your aabomination
My very world is shaken, all else gone topsy-turvy
With everything that has happened, I know I should detest you
I know I should tremble with outrage at the mention of your name
I know I should wallow in the misery you’ve wrought
But I cannot, ‘cos still flowing fresh and clean is my affection for you
Still dominating my mind are the memories of your goodness
Still fluttering in my heart is the hope that you’re still the same
And upon the utterance of your softly-spoken apology, I forgave all
Brushing out the turbulence of your mistakes from my horizon
Focusing instead on the glow of a fresh start
A bumpy road this beginning shall be
But the journey nonetheless we shall undertake
This I promise you.
POET’S PROFILE:
My name is Walter Uchenna Ude, and I’m a lover of the written word, have been for as long as I can remember. Even with an educational background in science, I am driven to make something out of my ability to write and my love for reading.
Very many things affect my outlook on #life – the faint whiff of Nature, the flashing vista of movies, the warmth of companionship, the happy sound of laughter, the plaintive echo of misery. And these are all reflected in my storytelling.
I started out writing poetry, and gradually progressed into prose, telling my stories and expressing myself through the characters I weave in my works of fiction. Because I never really had the initial support from family for my love of literature, I used to lack in the confidence necessary to pursue writing.
That changed when I won an internet award for the Amateur Poet for the year 2003. That changed everything. I felt validated. And ever since then, I have been writing in earnest.
I just concluded my participation of the Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop 2013, championed by celebrated novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and at the end of I all, I took home one valuable lesson, the words of the writer herself: ‘You can be whatever you want to be. You can break whatever rules you want, just as long as you know that you are doing so.’
Now, of course, she was talking about the art of writing, and I am gradually working that into my discipline as a writer.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Mr. Shakespearean Walter is one of the founding members of WRRPoetry, when we had less than 200 members. His poem was one of the first to get more response than my own poems. At the time, he showed so much enthusiasm that you would wonder if he was the owner of the initiative.
One year down the line and Poet Walter still has my respect, not just for his poetry, but for his burgeoning fiction (fact fiction) writing skills. His poetry is one that anyone and everyone can find a connecting point with.
He runs a very active blog, one of the few I find worth visiting, because of its mixture of news, entertainment, poetry and creative writing.
Mr. Walter is a writer of his generation. Watch out for him.
Related articles
- Eopp2013: the Winners (wordsrhymesandrhythm.wordpress.com)
- A POET’S PAST MUST ADRESS HIS PRESENT (an essay by Oludipe Oyin Samuel) (wordsrhymesandrhythm.wordpress.com)
- Her Story (wordsrhymesandrhythm.wordpress.com)
