The Ofi Press Magazine

International Poetry and Literature from Mexico City

Uche Nduka (Nigeria): 1 Poem Published
 

 

 

Lost In The Rain

 

 

 

 

Lost in the rain

 

And the wild wind

 

gloom couldn’t be gloomier

 

for his dark-eyed son

 

 

 

And what could he do

 

When even the song of the poet

 

had gone homing to a graveyard

 

 

 

And gamblers had gathered

 

And howlers had gathered

 

with pricking dirges

 

for his black-eyed son

 

 

 

As rainbows branded the sky

 

And fury gutted the street

 

And hours harvested bones

 

 

 

Dawn emptied his drawers

 

Emptied him of friends

 

Pelted him with loss

 

In the town of a one-eyed king

 

 

 

And the graveyard was a shrine

 

for the bleeding light

 

In the song of the poet

 

En la lluvia perdido

Versión al español: Fer de la Cruz

 

 

 

En la lluvia perdido

 

Y la silvestre opacidad del viento

 

no habría de ser más turbia

 

a los oscuros ojos de su hijo

 

 

 

Y qué podía hacer

 

si aun el canto del poeta

 

había vuelto a la tumba, en busca de un hogar

 

 

 

Y los apostadores se habían conglomerado

 

También los aulladores

 

con sus cánticos fúnebres, para ofrendar punzantes

 

a los oscuros ojos de su hijo

 

 

 

En tanto el arcoíris herró el cielo

 

y la furia desentrañaba calles

 

y cosechaba huesos cada hora

 

 

 

sus cajones vació el amanecer

 

lo dejó sin amigos

 

le dio de golpes con su propia pérdida

 

en tierra de rey tuerto

 

 

 

Para la luz sangrante

 

la tumba era una ermita

 

en el canto del poeta

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uche Nduka Biography

Uche Nduka (b. October 14, 1963), is a Nigerian poet, essayist, songwriter and anthologist. Born and raised in Nigeria, he has lived in Holland, Germany and the U.S. He is the author of seven volumes of poems, a book of prose, and is the editor of two anthologies of poetry. Winner of the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize for 1997, some of his writings have been translated into Dutch, German, French and Serbo-Croatian. Until recently, he taught literature at the University of Bremen, Germany.

 

His latest volume of poems is titled eel on reef (Akashic Books, New York, 2007). Some new poems of his were published in The Recluse and Boog City this year. Nduka presently lives and works in New York City.

 

 

Image to accompany poem: "Rain in Sumy" by Dmytro Zagrebelnyy (Creative Commons)

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