Chukwuebuka Freedom Onyishi
What is the metaphor of our dreams in these
Fungi lands that surround us; that pulls our boat closer &
faster toward that vanishing place, mother? i tell you, there is always an ark, like bacteria bioluminescence
locked up with us in this shadowed room, constantly pulling us away from each
Other’s memories — and yet, who ever owns a body on fire and not be hash to
darkness, at least, and to count on love, here-
what then is hopelessness, if not a half moon-shaped butterfly still learning to forget self in a planet of burning bush?
today, I awoke from my slumber with a gray bird from my dream land, a gift from my ancestors.
i look at the bird & i still see the marks. and hear the voice of its wounded lullabies:
singing the – broken verses, of our fathers; who were made stillwaters, for saying they want to be free, for saying, “let earth be earth again for suns and daughters, yet unborn.”
i am trapped in a corn tree with no love for my blood and kinds, here —
yet, someday, i shall grow up,
to paint you, my mother, into an image of a black
Ocean flowing with milk and paradise; we—
sunflowers holding our dreams bonding with the rising suns of the new moon cities. the same way we have always lived, before the mouths of their hates &
injustice caved in from nowhere and swallowed our songs.
I should learn to move, perhaps. But what is moving on, if not to someday
meet with love and fire face to face,
if not to dive into a sea of blood, somehow, to fish out the bones of all histories of your people buried by cannibals?
i am lost in a path i do not know how else to escape anymore. this memory outweighs me.
how does one really learn to thread back his own broken soul in a country of gold & dry bones? they say-
well, i am the worlds prodigal moon still leaning at the breaths of his own sacred epitaph, Mama—
Here i am naked, before your liquid altars, let loose the thunders of your new dawn upon this portrait-
i before those nights encroaching find way here, and eat me alive, again.
Onyishi Chukwuebuka Freedom is a final-year student in the Department of English and Literary Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is a writer with an incredible passion for music. When he is not writing, he can be found locked up in his rainbow space, trying to turn all his poems and titles into songs. He believes that music and writing are the two most astonishing bridges he can stand on to reach the globe for God and mankind. He is the Publicity Secretary of The Muse Journal No. 51.