Three Poems, Philip Chijioke Abonyi

Origin of water 

everything cloudy

has water inside it

when you dissect 

tears what exactly 

do you find 

if not a dark images? 

rivers are women

weeping over their dead juveniles

streams are girls who misplaced

their innocence in the territory of dogs 

seas are the survivors of war 

mourning the dead 

lakes are men grieving 

silently over their lives.

water is not colorless/

tasteless or odorless

it is dark in the eyes of a child whose mother is drowning

bitter in the mouth of a shadow lost in love & torment 

sweet on any skin caressed by sunlight. every human is a solidified water

that liquidizes under the heat of hurt. 

THE STREET IN MY MOTHER'S BACK

my mother says she feels

a heavily loaded trailer running

in the symmetric street in her back,

sometimes it drives down to her waist 

and parks there, 

each time her eyes gallop far into her skull 

and her torso takes the look of a broomstick. 

ten years ago I remember

a medic jerks out her blood and says it's not dirty. go home she will be fine. she walked home only to sit on the jaws of pain that teeth her into hopeless shadow. 

we recoup a cold water 

to suppress the fire on her waist 

as every night she becomes screams 

and sighs 

wishing for everything dark to swallow her

we make fire some days when she becomes snow wishing for sunlight

we sit near her eyebrows

cheering her eyes up

so there won't be rainfall. sometimes it seems her tread of life is about kissing 

the lips of scissors/

fear becomes soldiers marching into our body/ we burn ourselves in prayer 

psalm after psalm

until this trailer drives away to visit again 

the coming year. it's again the time 

my mother says she is hearing 

a horn somewhere in her body 

everything she holds is falling apart

I recoil into my bones 

praying that it won't be the trailer. someone tell me please,

how can my mother block this road?

if the pain is a living thing, when'll it die?

This annual visitor wants to go home 

with my mother. Never.

living behind walls

mother says there is no way

to Jerusalem for the shadows

that cannot reflect,

darkness means—to hit your 

head on the floor/run your hands

around your beads,

or to give kola nut to the sun, seek

life from the torso of yesterdays.

I grew up in my mother's reflection,

my room is built in the pages 

of bibles. the only road I know is from genesis to revelation,

mother always tell me

this is where I will find my allies. 

say psalm is a friend to be trusted in times of thunder, 

John is the only key that unlocks the 

body of God.

I grew up carrying walls to places,

Chioma who lives next door has tried to climb the wall

but my mother said there is a devil in her mini skirt.

Okon was devasted waiting for a day 

I will fly across for us to join the city butterflies. 

Aisha tested grief in my mother's words 

when she tried to share her tongue with me.

I grew up knowing how to run away

from voices,

how to hide from the conversation

of streets,

or crawl into a shell of silence when there are noises 

of mosque or mausoleum.

I grew up knowing 

how to walk into my mother's body 

and lock the door behind shadows with opaque,

I never cross the wall to know the world.

Philip Chijioke Abonyi was born at Nsukka in the igbo country of the east state of Nigeria. He was educated at Government College(Css) Ada Obollo Etiti and Anambra state polytechnic. He has lived an active literary life uplifting modern African Literature. His poetry is noted for its artistry, descriptive power and the way in which he draws on his locality for imagery and ideas. He was shortlisted for Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize, 2018. His work has appeared in African writer's magazines, AceWorld, Eve magazine, qwenu, Allpoetry, Tushstories, spriNG, Praxis magazine, Eboquill, Nantygreens, and elsewhere.