ECHOES OF A SEASON

Echoes of a Season is a collection of poems (about 10 in number but 9 are given here) that captures and expresses, in a  coded language, the experiences, anxieties and responses of “a priest on a pilgrimage of faith” and the efforts he made to speak directly to his audience in a matured approach and with love.

In a letter dated May 9, 2014 and addressed to the President of ADICRA with the topic: We Are In the Verge of Making History, Fr. Ken wrote:

“…along this line I wish to note that further delay in the execution of the task which providence, supported by time and events, has imposed upon you might create …and that Nwoko will ever be remembered by the Ukwa/Ngwa people as a true brother and a worthy son-of-the-soil who bore their pains and shared their misery on their unconscious journey, through a path constructed on the basis of trust, to a mass grave erected at the behest of global dictatorship and sponsored by the Abia State Government – “a popularity he never craved for.

On a personal note, I have to observe, with unbounded gratitude to God, that my bishop who voluntarily ordained a priest did not succeed in his bid to sacrifice me to his own god in a ritual sacrifice overseen and conducted by one of the chief priests of his new found religion whom he is irrevocably committed to in obedience. That the Bishop’s influential efforts to create me into an incurable mad-imbecile, a wanderer and a fugitive did not come to fruition is, for me, a miracle and an added cause for the unspeakable joy that follows me around.

I, therefore, employ this medium to thank you all for the parts you have played so far, individually or collectively, in my life and ministry. All of them, added together, have helped, in no small measure, to create me into what I am today – a fulfilled, and yet, ever determined priest in the Catholic tradition.

With a disposition that beggars belief and in an effort to occupy my right place in the history of Aba Diocese and in Ukwa/Ngwa land, and in contrast to the wild gossips making rounds about my ministry in the Diocese, I have decided to make public, three of my write-ups – if you like, documents - that have given form and shape to my words, actions and behaviors as a person, a priest and a patriotic citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. These documents equally go to show that my words, actions and behaviors have always blended with all my write-ups to confer the character of stability on my person. They are as follows:

a.          My Letter of August 19, 2000 to Most Rev. Vincent Valentine Ezeonyia, CSSP, Catholic Bishop of Aba titled “Appreciating the Problems at the Our Lady of Fatima Parish, Umuagbai”.

b.          My Letter of October 18, 2004 to Most Rev. Vincent Valentine Ezeonyia, CSSP, Catholic Bishop of Aba titled “Letter of Threat and Real Threats To My Life”.

c.    Poems that have served as “archives” and show the course of action which prayer and resolve charted for me in time and in history for the fulfillment of the mission which duty imposed upon my fragile shoulders.”

Echoes of a Season is an effort to keep date with the promise made in the letter to ADICRA as specifically mentioned/referred to in “c” part of the quotation from the letter.

1.    REMEMBERING FR. ONWUTUEBE AND MSGR. GABRIEL ETCHE.

Dearest Fr. Onwutuebe!

In your serene grave do you still remember

The poise with which we signed our mission statements

And the speed with which they wrote our death-warrant

in kindred paper?

Upon tripod thrones which Papa provided

In every sanctuary of the Roman deal we sat

You and I

To pound the yam fufu

And prepare the Okazi soup

So that our numerous friends would feed from celibate kitchens.

But as we fed our fellow pilgrims with the Bread of Life

And made them drink from Living Springs;

As we threaded the lonely paths of our rotational farms,

Little did I know we were starved

Of our princely embrace

And stripped of the fatherly protection

And you died...

Then you died.

Strange!

Incredible!!

Chei!

From a Tokumbo Volvo shop

A brand new priest

Bought a brand new coffin

And found a brand new grave!

Everything is indeed brand new

Even though nothing is ever new

So that the happenings from here to you

And from there to me

Can be communicated.

I decided to stay back.

To remain alive

And to ward off the cloister of vultures

That perch on my roof

As they murderously perched on your own roof

And the roofs of the others with you there

 I tried to acquire a smoking gun.

My Ekwe was ceased and labeled an “Ogbunigwe.”

Then they served me the death warrant.

Till tomorrow’s dawn

I continue to wonder how venerable men

Have turned into vultures overnight

To fear the bang from smoking guns

When their heads are rested comfortably upon pillows

 Which are merely encasements of bombs and grenades

Dear!

Before you go back to your deep slumber

Help me pass this message on to our brothers there

And others yet unborn.

Tell them that in your priestly grave

And in my priestly gloom

We are loftily alone!

Vulnerable bearers of the message of life

That may sound like death threats

To many unrepentant ears

Steeped in overt fears

Over bizarre choices made while consciences slumbered.

Tell Msgr Ahunanya that he knew a lot and did little

Tell Nwolu that he saw much to silence him

Salute the commitment of our great ancestor Papa Etche

Over here,

Fada Onwere said nothing and went into exile

Myself went everywhere and never returned.

But this I know!

That sooner He will return!

The Sole Maker and Supreme Caretaker

Of the storeroom of providence will return.

The Lion of the Tribe of Judea will return.

Christ the King shall return to His Diocese.

And we shall know who this Bishop is.

And who the madman is.

The “Iesus Dominus” of John Paul II shall return to His Church.

For only Him shall I know

And no other shall I know

For nothing is hidden that cannot be revealed!

Adieu!

Worthy Ambassador to a Third World Diocese!

Goodbye to your own home land.

For now, entertain no preferences

For a return to our old house.

It is now a home to homicides.

2.        NEWS OF THE IMMANUEL

The prophets dined and wined

And became drunk with sobriety

At the announcement of the beginnings

Of the Festival of flesh and blood.

Shivers ran on the spines of masquerading elders.

But prisoners were called back from the desert land

Where they have gone

To hunt for their long lost destiny.

The night threatened and pulled the ripcords

Thus dragging the stars from their timid roots

But did not know the color of diamond twinkles

That the earth enjoyed.

 From its own vault

The morning displayed rich folds of the swede

Across earth’s surface

Like belted tapestry around the mouths of talking drums.

Men put asunder their marriage to forlorn hope

As misdeeds wrought when the newsstands were dry.

Now glued to the luxurious prodigies of faith

They started the moon dance at late afternoon.

Experience has made us turn agnostic

At prophetic adumbrations

And therefore left us tethered

To the stakes of ignorance

About our tomorrows unspoken

Like tender yam tendrils climbing their stakes

Only to hide their heads in shame

When the hostile sun challenged their upward movement

What a macabre dance to some rankle affiliations!

If only the prognostications of the world about her stars

Were successful

The Christs of today would know no wounds and Golgothas.

But they would only be tall effigies of a bizarre messiah!

But I am astounded

At how the Hero of the fairy tale in our moon dance

Has mysteriously acquired hands and feet

And betaken the name Immanuel

At a time when prophetic lips

Were beginning to chew on their own entrails

In defiance of genuine orders from above.

Begin the festival fire if you like!

Willy-nilly, our world must resound with a song to the Immanuel

Whose echoes

Must bespatter the propylaea of sequent kingdoms,

Switching on and raising the volume of joy

In believing hearts.

Otherwise, it will raise the volume of sorrow

In the tizzy hearts of the prelates

Who may think it amusing to hide our News

In the secret archives of a Curia.

3.        A BRAND NEW CITY

My friendly owl!

I invite you to venture across memory lanes with me

Through lands and seas

To the doorstep of an Omniscient Potter

In whose hands our destinies are molded

And then we venture back.

At the place

Where the night hands over the batten to the day

Is where our missions unfold.

You own the Night but the Day is given to me.

Unseen but louder than Church-bell bangs

 Is the sound of your orgy dance on the top of ancient Irokos

Whose roots assiduously count

On the support of the thick darkness of misfortunes.

At the daybreak

You coveted the eulogies of bewildered humans

Meant as the price for the early morning songs

From blissful bird

You did this

Even though no one heard of you again before cockcrow.

Startled by the golden rays of my brand new Day

And tracing the furrows of unseasonable Doves,

Here I’m at Owaza

And then at Eleme

 In these Refineries of fate

Dancing in sarcastic ecstasy around beacons of flaring hopes

That are jarring at the scaly skin of velvet sky

Daring it for answers to perturbing questions.

Perched on the oscillating branches of these beacons

Which must be steadied as my Day unpacks

I pity you my poor friend.

I pity you!

I pray that your ugly head acting out its protests

Against two pebbles ingrained unceremoniously upon its head

As if to solicit the support of darkness

Be notified of the crimsoned curds of rivalry

Curdled around my curious eyes

As they are cast expectantly upon the activities at Golgotha.

One hot afternoon

The Kingmaker enthroned

Upon the arcane  propylaea of sequent Kingdoms

Shall invade the dingy palaces

Of the Ogwugwu Akpu shrine in Okija

To berate the national managers for cutting his cake

With a pair of incisors drilled from the mouth of a sleeping cobra.

After a handshake with the Prelates and Imams

Whose index fingers are clasped lavishly

To the levers of masquerading causes

He shall announce the sublime expurgations of barbaric mannerisms from our Isi-Opara meetings.

Hurray!

In one swift response of providence

That draws unsparingly from catalysts

Stored in many hearts and minds

A new brand City is born!

A new brand Enyimba City!

4.        OUR LITTLE WORLDS

Our little worlds!

So many little worlds of man

Wrapped

And waking 

And walking

 And working

In the mighty world of God’s making!

Little worlds of differing

Or indifferent

Or often

Bizarre and contradicting 

Words

Ideas

 Ideals

 And deeds.

Our little worlds that came to answer

Our questions

Or protects

Against  this strange

And mighty world

Of God

And plant a virile smile on his baby face

Or oft’

Draw fresh and bitter tears.

Bitter tears of an unending flow!

Thus are born life’s mild or wild idioms

That turn this fragile piece of earth into fierce battle fields

Seeking to talk from their diverse cantonments

To insult and maim their enemies.

I shall not be unfair to call you sluggards

For I have neither the paper of an untainted judge

Nor the marks of a wise master.

But then, our little worlds!

Where really are you taking us to!!

What really are you making of us!!!

5.        UBIQUITOUS VULTURE

Ubiquitous Vulture

Sitting on the high temple pinnacle!

So you can fly to such a height?

But I know you cannot further fly beyond this

For your wings are only the last vestiges

Of a conquered and decayed strength

Very much unlike those of the Eagle.

You sit astride the temple

In spurious triumph over those inside.

And now you spread your kinky feathers

And nod your bared head and rejoiced

As once cruelty sat astride the incarnate word

And spread its tentacles over Him and also rejoiced briefly

Just briefly!

 And only briefly!!

 But,

I wonder why we cannot assert our superiority in silent promises

Over you

Even though you sit astride us!

Hurray!

 Here it comes!!

 He is alive!!!

My Redeemer liveth.

6.        MERRY FUNERAL

You!

Advancing in a snail-speed!!

You are a wave of an unwavering disaster.

I know you died long ago in the hands of the Incarnate Word.

What brought you here again?

I press my query against you!

Why steal by cold embrace

And mortgage in silent boredom

The creation's crown?

You are not argue-proof

In the courtyard of duplicity.

You are a bogus aggressor

And a vexed transporter to the land of eternal bliss

Have you seen your victorious Victim?

Now dressed in kingly wrappers

      And decked with emerald diamonds

             Of heavenly pride

                In worshiping acrobat

                     To the Holy God

                           The Holy Mighty One

                                  The Holy Immortal One

                Who sits on the Untainted Throne.

Who is the fool now?

       The creations crown

                Or, you cruel ghost

 Of shameful disdain

         Raging like a caged lion

                And barking like a toothless bulldog?

Shame!

Shame!!

Shame!!!

7.        LOVE FOR DESERT SANDS

Roses grown in the desert

Clothe the desert sands in beautiful apparels

And lavish their scents on them.

.

But sands are abjectly indifferent to beauty

And are abjectly bereft of a value faculty in their judgment!

Huge sacrifices are offered at the altar of dead gods

(Not unknown gods).

Sacrifices made in expectancy of wandering love

That never returns!

And so…

Many sweet scented flowers grow to be starved of admiration

And condemned to rot away in the unfriendly desert sun.

Many sacrifices are offered to placate the anger of dead gods

And their smoke travel to unconquerable oblivion

To honor idols with Majestic salute.

O! Desert sands!

O! Dead gods!!

O that you may cease upon this blessedness

To rise above your dilapidatedness!!!

8. I PLAY MY BANJO!

It’s just that!

A team of spectators

A rabble of rousers

A throng of insinuators

And a throbbing crowd

In the pitch of destiny

Wherein I am a lone-member team.

Wrapped in this thick embrace of the anonymous

In which my lofty aloneness

Is drowned in the cheers and jeers

Of pimps and peers

The game of fate unpacks.

Fielders are merely indispensable outbursts

 Of lofty “oughts” and “ifs”

Loitering on the sacred altars

Of allegiance or vengeance.

For, even though the hi-fi cords of destiny

Are wrought from beyond

None

But I alone

Can play the Banjo of my life.

Either for a macabre dance to some rankle affiliations

Or, a for romance with eternal ordinations.

When the carousing fingers of loyalties

Shall fiddle the callous springs of royalties,

A cacophony of shuffles

Shall have shuttled shocking chides

Across the shutters of the ignorant.

9.        ELEGY FOR MY GOVERNOR

Cold pincers

Are dangling from the sleeves of your expensive suites of sadism.

They are dancing to the familiar tones of violent manoeuvres.

Let me see your hands!

Surely, they are not these pincers encapsulating

The coldness of death! Or, are they?

The ripples you caused on the waters of adventure

Are rising to a new crescendo on the hills.

Your visit to the oriental shrines are again becoming regular

And yet you have not rested.

We know that these numerous festivities

Are facades of satisfaction for your murderous appetites.

Please save our monies on mourning clothes

While probing eyes

Must take a nosy walk upon mass graves

In the flowered garden of an under populated clan.

By an unusual twist of fate

You will become so full of yourself one day

And dare to knock on the infant door of enfleshed wisdom

Then seduced by the Star

And hearkening to the suggestions of providence

Against the distractions of Herod

Some wise men on a journey to arcane discoveries

Shall unmask your identity now written in lurid idioms.

Strange causes

May have sowed the seeds of debacle

That grew on the fertile soil of our mental fantasies .

Yet, do not be deceived!

When providence shall lend her weight to our cause

We shall open isochronously the sacks

On the shoulders of the vampire

To see whether their contents do differ

 From these your strange  achievements.

For this,

 It is only some snorting balls of indentured apology

That can relieve the insurrections that cluster

On the beaks of struggling slaves .

Whereby you consider the price tag

Of this friendly alternative

Only available in the sales book

Of a diamond shop at high-brow Ikoyi!

Then be assured that the tinctures of century old debt

You incurred at birth

May betray the resurgent caricatures

Our statutes have suffered in your rambling fingers.

The proselytes into your kingdom

And the August visitors to your palaces

May be forced to drink the intoxicating wine of sequestrations

Against your many patrimonies.

Be aware that in distant cantonments

Where infantry parade has already commenced

Somber ears will be confounded at the deafening sound

Of sycophantic drums emanating

From the Immaculate Palace of the Caliph.

And the footfalls generated by the Awilo dance

In your high places

Could be mistaken for a war song

In some ears that are daft

To damning  consequences .

So.

 Beware!

Be Warned!!

Be gone!!!

Litter your own street walls with the posters

Of the world of your imagery.

And at the crossroads in a ghostly market place

Erect your phantom duplex on the sands of your own fantasies.

Surely as you dwell there

Thanks to your graduation

In the college of Lycanthropy

Your obloquous neighbors shall roll out

A brand new set of Talking Drums

To celebrate your pyrrhic victory

Over sarcastic victims whose obsequies

Are the result of your experiment on raw power

In the many laboratories scattered over greedy brooding hearts.