imagine the impossible (where will the violent wind go that man's thoughts have not been before)…+
Do you see the harmonious congress of the palm trees Arranged in columns of green That stand on the shore of a now regressed sea, And wave at a nameless being – Who speaks not, yet teases and leaves no clue. Listen! You may catch the evening news Hidden deeply in the weather. Now or later, woman it doesn’t matter when you do Halt or haste, it doesn’t matter which you choose, For time hurries us forever.
I wonder in this hour about things...small neglible things like the shape of the water dripping from a lonesome fern, like the number of sands in my shoe, like the beauty of the fly trapped in the spider's web, like the little birds that wobble in their bones among the trees...I wonder about fate, about priviledges, about how it would have felt if I had a head start in this interesting journey called life. I think about that little soul I saw one night in the traffic, clothed in rags, eyes deep like the lekki oceans, singing softly her sad soronous songs. A child too, a child of two perhaps...lost in the music of her voice, oblivious of her fate, begging for alms for a mother who sat at a corner with another child in her arm, ready to fuck again and again to populate the world with many sweet little children who may know no love.
“Tell me about yourself Linda. I want to know your story.” “You mean me?” she had replied, and turned slightly towards him with a perplexed look in her eyes; “Wetin you wan know? “Anything you can spare dear – how you came here? What you hope to achieve?” “Me. . .I come from Eket to Lagos. Me wan make money quick, send home to my family.” She had told him while lighting a cigarette. He remembered the silence that followed. A silence so deep, that it was loud and deafening, and dragged on for awhile. He recalled lying on the bed and contemplating what next to say to her. She appeared to him to be unaware of the dangerous path she was treading, almost impervious to it – almost. He recalled that the room was immediately besieged by white smoke from her cigarette which floated between the two of them, separating them into different eras, into different classes, into the exploiter and the exploited. He wanted to help her escape the life she was into. He still wanted to help her now. She stood then by the window for most of their conversation, looking into the night. She would occasionally draw at the cigarette with little care in the world, and puffed out the smoke with the same demeanour. “What are you thinking?” He remembered saying to her in a bid to breach the distance between them. “Me? Nothing oo, me just dey look outside.” “It’s beautiful ba?” She had shrugged and said nothing. The silence descended once more upon them then. It was thick like the nicotine-filled air around them. The room smelt of burnt tobacco. He remembered craving for a smoke, but he pushed the craving off his mind.
And thus here we part never returning And a thousand thoughts are through me running, From the tears to the words left unspoken, Of the raging storm that darkens my view; At that hour when all the heavens were blue
Now leave love, leave gently. Leave me alone, Your smile is fiendish, betraying. I have learned my ship to captain Through thousand torrential dark waves, Beyond that abyssinal gulf Between myself and you!
She said: “Charles, I don’t know why, But I feel so depressed.” And I said: “Don’t you think you need Jesus In your life, don’t you? On the phone, She laughed. I never heard her laugh so hard “Maybe I need Jesus.” she said; “But not tonight. Tonight I would stay here with you and cry.”
"I want you my dear." I said to her the first day she visited me. Holding her hands and gently stroking the fingers with mine. There is something about the caress of hands that has always fascinated me. The gentle tracing of the contours of the palm, the soft touch of the finger tip, the locking of our little fingers as we talked. "I have always wanted you," I continued, "From the first day I set eyes on you on the cab. Please be mine." No, she said - flat and straight. There was no mistaken the sting of that word. But her eyes lied, her heart beat faster and her lips wavered. I could tell she liked me, I felt it in the way she touched me, I felt it in the warmth of her gaze upon me, how she smiled at my silly jokes, yet she would not set herself free and love me.
It started with flat palms. It started with, “Look. If we press our hands together, we become equators. Our fingers, the meridians. The way we interlock looks just like the world.” It started with being foolish. It started with lightning storms in the bases of our necks, thunder tumbling from our lips as we kissed like we were made out of hurricanes. It started with, “Love me.”
by Okoye Chukwudi Ezeamalukwuo Some of us want to be loved. Some of us want to be respected. Some of us want to be feared. But few of us have that natural attributes in their right proportions to acquire one or more of these. Most of us don’t even know what we want, where we belong, where we are going. Most of us just have weight and occupy space, drifting through life unconscious of the value of time, of the power at our disposal, merely existing without living.
It's not like one can give what one does not have Like playing a piano, or singing in the opera, Like loving a woman (that they say takes a special kind of skill).
ink fifteen 