Chuma Onuora; A Dear Departed


Why won't this damned tears let me be
Deep in my soul fleshes my memories of him,
Carried in thoughts my pen as chariots interpretes,
Sadly in mould of blurs and cracked cast tombstone
These are words of my hand, not my heart; not my will,
For sadness has wretched my heart, shattered, lost, I am.
But, beyond these tears, the splitting heart ache,
Of these many questions that won't stop popping;
Of this man who each and all knew in pieces
I would want pieced together like generic wine

Who is Chuzzy, Toks, Chuma, the bits like bites
I seeked and found variously his appeal, infecious
His reputation on aspects as still, is in comparison;
Unlike the many others from shattered field:
Those in frontline at times of riot in Sokoto,
Those others drinking, partying cocks crow to bed
Where as, for the good of being their pals he stays with
Yet keeping the mind of youngman of dignified postures,
Not doing badly at holding drunken conversations,
Yet, wide eyed; all knowing, Mr. Nice, composure per excellence,
His sight and insight; art to toasting, ever ready, eyes ever roving.

These past few days, I look back to those our times
Where it all began, again and again. Compared to now
Thinking; anyone could have been in that ICU, or dead,
Cast down without a thought for our sins or not;
Like a bullet hardly giving any of us time enough to blink;
Time enough to say goodbye, do the farewell embraces,
Never to know what it would be like to grow old or frail;
Lost to the mountain of expectations versus indulgence
Free at last to the heat that comes with fear; of death at living
The signposts are not good; so I have been hugging than usual.

To whoever feel like many; why Chuzzy, God not him;
To those who feel the good ones die tool early, feel
The snashing; the injustice of loosing a life priceless
Marvel at this garment of wooly deceit death wears
Among us, shroud, sleek but shrewish picking us off,
One by one in this inescapable granary net we call world
Be warned death is almost always never for being good or bad:

Now, to speak of your strength in dispair;
Rather than mourn with body and heart broken
Free yourself, as hard as it sounds of daze-
We, who alive with ability must repaint this grey
Repair and realize quickly too, alarm bell as red are real
Never can tell the quickness of death's hurricane landing
So while we see one another breathing,
Knowing yet we live in shell of egg,
Death constantly fondles and must someday break.

As our dear Chuma Onuora soon be enclosed
In his new home no skin but all soul
Watching and reaching us in whispers:
As we lie in wait, dying of not knowing
Be neither crushed as you must, nor crippled,
Live every minute, love hard, stay in touch
But most of all let's make out time to blink and hug, more.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ZACK'S STORY

By Abidemi Sanusi ZACK’S STORY is a response to Kemi’s Diary; that is, stories of two narrators in love but unlike in the earlier story where we shared kemi’s diary, here we’re taken on a journey of reflection of the other half- Zack Kariba. Zack gave a testimony of how within two years leading to their ten years anniversary, on where he had been, how he and his fiancée who eventually turns out wife had lived in his one room apartment, his emotional turmoil within the period and an usual discovery of his past. The story is a real, palpable documentation, that streak of actual record. Zack’s character Abidemi Sanusi shows aptly, writes his story in a different style from Kemi - showcasing the typical male orientation and worldview. She writes with the precision of highly literate prose novelist with very well crafted dialoguing. Zack is shown to have the habit of interrupting himself, as if impatient with the fictional convention of telling a story linearly. For instance, let me qu
Read more

TENANTS OF THE HOUSE

BY WALE OKEDIRAN The historical real-life tale in the ‘Tenants of the House’ will come alive for all those who were fortunate to witness the shenanigans that went with similar attempt few years back; as in the ‘Tenants of the House,’ there was an impeachment procedure instituted against the Speaker of the House of Representative, spear headed by the president, then there was a successful fight back, but then, this was followed immediately by an attempt to institute constitutional amendment for tenure prolongation through the back door which caused an uproar and,...finally, a counter impeachment procedure instituted by the the two houses against the president. The book’s uncontested star is ofcourse, the president; a Chief Ambrose Oneya, a caricature; sloppy, foul-mouthed chief executive whose only ways to do things was to stampede everyone into doing whatever he wanted done, done his way and who never believed, until he was humiliatingly humbled, that Nigerian and Nigeria as a c
Read more

WHY WOMEN WON'T GO TO HEAVEN

By DUL JOHNSON 1. I want to start from the very beginning – the opening; What does a reader want in an opening? First is to have the writer introduce the main character(s) and intimate something about the situation she/they are in-i.e the conflict that will provide dramatic twine for the story; (2) to get us interested and involved; and (3) to do it all in a timely fashion, i.e. it stops being an opening as soon as possible and gets on with the story.... ‘WHY WOMEN WON’T MAKE IT TO HEAVEN’ succeeded in doing just that...it introduces us to the characters, showed us where they were, and showed that they’ve gotten concerns or problems. And it does all these in the first page; starting with a long paragraph and quick five short paragraphs. After this, the story is up and running as the conflicts between a husband and his wife, then similar issues between other husbands and their wives escalates with disastrous consequences. The second story is more leisurely, comparably. Reading throug
Read more