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Best Poems Written by Nwafor Oji Awala

Below are the all-time best Nwafor Oji Awala poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Nwafor Oji Awala Poem

FAIR FUTILITY

It's gilded in bright colours 
Like a peacock butterfly;

It sparkles in splendour 
Like a diamond in the sun; 

When it rests, it rests
In confined dank darkness,
In a bowel of nightmare 
With what remains of a king:

a diet for forbidden creatures.

Now to what gain or profit
Are  the swellings of ego
Which defined and measured
His reign of majesty?

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GHOST

I am the ghost of your journey, 
Failures of your past, 

I am a shadow of you,
Made of cockroaches of the night ,

I am a video on silence,
Of the uglies in your closet.

Can one run away from his bowels?

Today was the tomorrow that has come 

Embrace me and in silence
Follow your light 
For a smooth journey 
To tomorrow.

Details | Nwafor Oji Awala Poem

REINCARNATION

We go and come 

We come again and go again 

...a ring

Like water that ascends
...to return as rain
...to smoke up again...

A circle 
An order 

My ancestors are back
Staring into my soul 
Through the eyeballs 
Of my children.

Details | Nwafor Oji Awala Poem

DARK ENTRAILS

Change vomited dark entrails 
Of the bald vulture on my clan;

We were buried,
One after the other,
In the belly of the village stream, 
And pulled out
Almost immediately 
To choruses that had no place 
When waist dance shared peace 
From the full moon;

We have brayed and prayed
In the names of strange ancestors
Printed in a book of curses, blessings,
And chronicles of their blessed exodus
But we have been sinking
Down the understream 
Among the half dead and the forgotten; 

We reek of bile throws 
From a turn in history 
When our men were led from line
By yellow ants

Thus change has treated 
MY clan this badly.

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LOST SHINE IN DUST

Vibrations burst in my muscles 
Like warring armies of
Water and wave that 
Surge to electrify a city--
I want to leap on the red hill
At the village arena
Like a mighty leopard
And pounce on a willing opponent,
Throw him in the dust
To proclaim a sounding victory

But there is no red hill
At the village arena anymore 
Wrestling is no longer
A dear spot among my clansmen 
Gold, diamond and rubies 
Have lost their shine in the dust.

Details | Nwafor Oji Awala Poem

SUMMATION

We
Emerge 
Through 
The innards 
Of drenched 
Scarlet, with
A piercing cry
Of an afflicted 
Crow, away 
From clan, 
Rising slowly, 
A flaming ember,
Over the fingers
Of trees

We grow,
We plough 
And web next
To kill and take 
With gluttony
Of the hyena
For food, love 
And wealth
But all 
Too soon 
To retire
As sinking 
Red ball
Behind 
The 
Fingers
Of
Trees

Details | Nwafor Oji Awala Poem

RUSTING

Fire is a spirit, 
crackling vibrations, 
sirring catalyst; 
force and energy 
of the midday sun.

I raced over 
mountains, caressed
hairs of strong 
forests and rolled 
over balling rivers.

But this dour 
fluorescence Is a 
used canister
rusting to dust 
where doting memories
of the midday sun 
lazy along the silver 
line into the 
grove of silence.