Some poems shout their message out like a street evangelist but others speak so softly yet so strongly. “The Ocean Boils” by Nwanne Agwu, fits into the latter category. Every line will snake its way through your being and leave behind a trail of rhetorics that will marvel you. We enjoyed this read and we know you will, too!

– Editorial Team

1.
floating bubbles,
mirrors of our breaking world.
I have buried myself
a thousand and many times
in graves and tombs but you brought
me here, you showed me to myself and
made my soul deeper than the sea.
oceans bow when I weep.

two days without water,
five days without food,
you prayed while I fasted,
I called my heart to a party
but you poured the food
into the ocean. it cries.

crying, boiling
I thank things without name.
I am founding my God, or
rather, my god is hoping for a new
name, birthing, and rebirthing itself
while I search for the face of Nico-
demus. tonight a man comes to Jesus.

birth
rebirth.
hope is killing me,
softly, slowly, with every drop
of tear, the ocean boils, bellying
my food, counting my tears, weighing
my soul searching for the soothing hand
of someone that was, that might be mother again.

2.
I heard there is a well under your eyes,
inside your eyes, close to the gates of your heaven.
they said it is deep. they said it is full.

a man once laid his child in a river
to swim, to learn. the child died.
there are things you shouldn’t ask about.

How?
a boy died and the only question you ask is “how?”
sometimes there is no way to explain everything.

mother says death is death. If I see
a rope around your neck, mother thinks
I should bring you down and make you a bed.

do dead people sleep?
I am tempted to ask, “how do they sleep?”

just forget it. I need love. I need life.

About The Author

Nwanne Agwu lives in Abakaliki. He loves life and wants to live.

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