TWO POEMS

By Gospel Okoro

BLACK BOY

black boy, black boy

skin so dark with kisses of tomorrow

body holding glass memories of yesterday

memories of your father exchange

lands for a piece of glass

memories of your mother exchange

ivory bracelets for gunpowder

memories of The Masters anger and deceit

memories of their claws biting into your innocence

black boy, black boy

skin, untold prophecies of the coming years

years our feet chained in in-dependence

in-dependence a choking thing around our neck

necks that once held the proof of a thousand years slavery

slavery, Africa's independence

black boy, black boy

palms breathing hard with labours past

maps to distant places 

known only in moonlit night stories of elders under the ukàlà tree

black boy, black boy

black boy, 

black,

boy

black boy, black boy

skin as fertile as the night skies

spreading beyond the West Sea into the Congo

black boy, black boy

black is beauty

black is strength

worship your ugly parts in freedom

there is beauty in darkness

                                                                                  

BOY ON A TREE

On a tree,

I hear jungle drums;

speakers of the heart of ancient spirits, silent

at the boisterous waves of the West Sea.

The innocence of the sea is raped by the barrel of a gun

its bank now serve as a burial ground for slaves

and the market where women sold garri and beans

now turns to a commercial zone of skulls and bones.

On the tree,

I can see the lappa that kissed the twin milk goddess on my mother's chest

exchanged for a string of two cups hung on the shoulder

and my Father's goat horn exchanged for a piece of glass.

From the top of the tree,

I reach out to hold the blue sky

for light from the brutal hands of the boisterous waves of the West Sea.

Where is the birth of my heritage?

                                                                                  

Gospel Okoro is an undergraduate of the department of English and Literary Studies in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. A fiction writer, poet, and essayist, whose literary work has earned two online prizes and literary recognitions amidst publications.