Dark Room

In this messy milieu, I am a dark room

In search of light rays: an exorcist.

My diva’s voice is become a fantasia.

Her tunes are for twisted tongues.

To your grave! O music, you are a soulful deceiver.

You fill and heal and kill.

For you, I am alive in the dream

and dead when I rise at dawn.

My last flame fought a lost battle.

When my candle is done melting in the sun; gather the wax.

Is pain in the air I breathe?

This floating vibe that swings back and forth,

My heart is not a pendulum. Be steady. Be calm.

Let these torments sleep a deathly sleep.

© Echezonachukwu Nduka 2015

Image source (Dark room: www.kaijupop.com )

En route London Waterloo

In this bus full of laughter

Pray tell, how do you concentrate?

Youngman, your book bears three names.

Its identity is a wafting smoke seeking

To commune with the clouds

And send rains as testaments

of shifting truths.

Post-structuralist:

Your truth is red today

and green tomorrow.

As Harmattan winds weep not

And leaves turn brown;

Your truth becomes brown and like

a chameleon—blend well on all pages and stages.

Youngman, the first page of your book is history.

Forget your life on the last page and close it.

Your life will be a bookshelf.

I was told that math could be

read like a novel:

x plus x minus x divided by x

So what? I burned my books.

I still carry my doubts around

like my schoolbag.

I love math but hate equations and algebra.

Both boring problems should solve themselves like I do.

Youngman, how does it feel to feast your

eyes on pages and meet people of all sorts?

Some make you cry.

Some make you smile.

Some make you think; you change.

In this bus, you’ve been turning pages

And laughing at yourself—or at the

characters you meet.

Whichever way, madness comes in different shapes.

Youngman, lend no one that book.

Carry it with caution and care.

Your madness is supreme.

© Echezonachukwu Nduka 2015.

(Image source: www.math.jhu.edu)