O darkling core, O brilliant fringe,
As since these days of missing you
Have brought me sunset less its tinge
Of fire, a darkened vault above
Without its twinklers; creeping through
My mind a hush, recalling love.
But burning bright upon the edge,
These recollections, deasil ghosts:
Our smiles both joined—a kiss; like sedge
In-stream my prickles smoothed, my care
Submerged in draught of verse to toast
Your swagger, laugh, or floating hair;
Irreverent moments poking fun
At Kenpo comrades; naughty stops
By church, or park. My graceful sun
Is never doused in clouds, but sparks
Silver of nun's habit hem, the drops
Gilt in dream-bright eclipse of dark.
Uche Ogbuji was born in Calabar, Nigeria. He lived, among other places, in Egypt and England before settling near Boulder, Colorado. He is an entrepreneur and computer engineer (trained in Nigeria and the USA), but his abiding passion is poetry. His poems, fusing his native Igbo culture, European classicism, Western American setting, and Hip-Hop style, have appeared in sundry journals. Some recent venues are: The Raintown Review, IthacaLit, Unsplendid, String Poet, Mountain Gazette, YB Poetry, Scree Magazine, OF ZOOS, The Ofi Press, Verse Wisconsin, Victorian Violet and Angle. Uche is editor at Kin Poetry Journal and The Nervous Breakdown.
