Poetry

The Argotist Online

Home Articles Interviews Features Poetry Ebooks Submissions Links

Abbia Udofia

I am a lawyer and writer born in Ibadan, Nigeria on 10 October, 1966. I graduated from the University of Calabar, Nigeria with a Bachelor of Laws LL.B. (Hons), Degree in 1988 and the Nigerian Law School, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria in 1989 when I was called to the Nigerian Bar. I have worked in private and public law firms and presently the Head of a Special Unit of a Government Agency established to investigate and prosecute corruption, fraud and related offences. I also write newspaper articles on contemporary issues and contributions to law journals. I have four manuscripts of poems yet undergoing editing and reediting. I am a Member of the Nigerian Bar Association; International Association of Prosecutors and the Nigerian Institute of Management.

trance

i look up to your bolted window

and assess lines of tears and fears;

gypsies down the street chant:

sing me songs of broken days,

sing me hearts stolen now, always

sing me you beautiful as Arabian vase..

i sit up to drawn drapes

and dream of broken bridges, hearts, dances,

even love turned back at blade point:

sing me songs of shaken displays

sing me souls blown on stairways

sing me love radiant, inviting embrace..

your pigeon signals silence;

i request a ticket to dreams

where cats turn and close the sky:

sing me songs of braking bays

sing me doves necking these ways

sing me lights enchanting like your face..

when this sleeping window is opened

admitting waiting calls of distant doves

and flowers from next window robin:

who will sing songs of broken days,

of hearts stolen now, always

and faces fading without trace..

i will approach the balloon cathedral

where after prayers i return doubly to myself,

i yet suppose dreams will wait:

as we sing songs of purple rays,

of hearts true now, always

of our love and its affirming grace..

the trial

she brought me to her heart barbwired,
iron-caged, yet joyous
like a cureless felon;
she brought me handcuffed, docked to answer
nameless charges endorsed by her aggrieved
one-legged, unforgiving affairs;

and when i pleaded my heart’s deep nail bond
and long line love, she declined all,
discounting my unmitigated allocutus
then served me sour love in peanut sachets;

when will my limestone tears melt
her frosty affection?
and when will these turbulent bouts,
clouds of doubts
liquefy in her rain of love?

listening

listening to walls in the night

whispers, soft calls, chants,

i read the dark sky and blank chronicles

voices painting the walls, voices indicting absence

voices pleading for warmth, refreshment, atonement

but the voices inside me sing

as i wait for the return of doves