By Victor Uzodinma Chukwuma
28. Lonely Beach
Behind the Sun watchful eyes,
Moon hands beat back dusk
At the lonely beach,
As caressing golden winds
Tell the banks fairy tales
Before winking galaxies.
On this silvery watery brink,
Enticing mermaids dance virgin
Songs from claps of surf.
And fired on by gods’ own symphony,
Trysting greenly lovers dance bare
To the rhythm of their pulsating hearts.
By dawn the Sun intruding eyes
Will beat back moon’s soothing shades,
The alluring mermaids will be gone,
The symphony of the gods will be drowned,
And us all lonely beaches will be left lonely.
29. Death in the Sun
Confused devotees clutching scriptures,
Burn immaculate gods
As logs before kleptomaniacal white robes
With stained souls and invisible forked tongues.
Drunken tongues
Dance in the victim’s Sun,
Cutting and joining
The land from below.
Blind eyes clinging void:
Ignorance is death.
This is their first, they will die again,
This will be the last.
Victor Chukwuma, Professor of Physics, renowned for his immense contribution to the development of Astronomy and Space Science in Nigeria, is a Fellow of the Astronomical Society of Nigeria and the Nigerian Institute of Physics.