NATIVITY

by Stephen Buoro

There is a silence here that makes the heart hemorrhage,
a silence clouded with the deafening cacophony of necromancy.
As the gaze of the drowsing stars, the slumbering moon
kiss my fleeting blind face,
as the first lips of breath lacerate my lungs
(what a bloodied dawn wreathed with cock symphonies!)
I am drowned in a dilemma
of either staring back and becoming slave
to the beckoning hysteria of the heaven of the womb
or embracing fate, thus being possessed by necrophilia,
for in this citadel, everywhere you turn
is the sexy magnetism of graves…

There is a silence here that fosters stillbirth
although in the presence of this throng
there are only the age lopsided foursome of you
exiled from earth
and left to rot to your bones.

Father, where are you?

Mother
are you the one
who has slain metamorphosis
of herself

though in the siege and sway of:
the dissector of disease
coins grown to be gripped only when lucre
the twelve baskets of hunger, the ravisher of thirst
the ceaseless coma of fear, the divorce of a morning…?
And you still slew metamorphosis
of yourself
even becoming cosmic greener
heaving with hope, lightening with love
a statue for the Heavens…?

Father, where are you?

You these messiahs of devils, creators
of disease, gods
of rudderlessness, curse
of generations, ogres
of my homeland, draper
of this sore, inventor
of this secondly but eternal
chasm on my family, assassins
of my pageantry birth,
I love you all!

Stephen Buoro is a very promising Nigerian poet. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: The Good Shepherd Magazine, Sun Revue, Poemhunter, Wasafiri, Able Muse and an anthology by Latin Heritage Foundation.

POETS NOTE: I was born in the early 90’s in my hometown, Ososo, South-South Nigeria. At the time, houses were used as cemeteries to bury dead family members for cultural reasons. I was born at a time of political unrest in Nigeria, in my great grandfather’s residence, a single-storey building which contained the remains of past generations of my family. My three elder siblings were with my mother while my father was away in the North.