Two Poems by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah
"Just Before We Go" and "A Broken Heart"
Just Before We Go Against the comfort of our quiet house, the deafening noise of the huge clock, rattles its rocky foundations; soon, it will be departure time, and we must board the flight, nestle in the wings of the sky, rest our heavy heads in the boughs of the clouds, watch birds shrink like tiny points of light; we were born for this purpose, to cancel life, erase our bodies, delete our presence and prepare for this inconvenient journey which must come when the end intervenes in our future affairs, leaving with us the debris of memories; I can hear the aircraft engines revving, its wings outstretched, its wheels warming for the runway; soon the pilot will sit in the cockpit, and ask all to fasten their seatbelts. We must be among the seated, waiting for a take-off to commune with the clouds. Now that the clock is ticking, and the hours are diminishing into crumbs of speeding seconds. Call off this lumping of the flesh, bodies pushed to their limits. Let us spit out fiery speed like a cobra; preparing for the catastrophe angling its way towards us. Although the ticking of the clock, is loud and unmistakeable, roaring like a mountain falling, falling and falling with a heavy thud, we will not be hysterical, not without prayers or presence of mind; we will not be anxious about time, but let courage be our bunker where we hide our trembling hearts, and allow the ticking clock empty itself into the valley of light; we must make our dreams pedestrian, achieved when grace sneaks into our hearts, or shields us from harm. All things happen with a thrumming power of raising our stars to the sky. Although the past is hanging over us, if our reasons and our hearts are clear, there is no need to fear the ticking clock.
A Broken Heart The day I realised that my heart broke, like the stalk of corn ripped in summer, or a mountain of red sand razed by storm, by a violent wind or a wild goose, I rushed to the roadside vulcaniser to help me stitch its pieces together. But he glared at me with open mouth, tugged at his tyres, rolled them over and whispered in my ears, you’re neither a tube nor a sulphur. I hurried to my local haberdasher to use his craft to mend me well, with needles, threads or similar things. The ziggy-ziggy noise of his sewing machine was the singular noise in the neighbourhood. He shook his body and waved me off. Do not tempt your loyal haberdasher. I was on the way to the dry cleaners when their van pulled beside me. Make me clean and sew me up, and I shall be a brick fit for a house. The cleaner smiled like summer snow and patted my shoulder amid a body quake. You can do this, young man, do it alone. Fix yourself at home, and you're well again. I pulled myself together and stared at the sky, remembering the wise words of my father, that every heart must heal itself in the city, or forever die while searching for joy; a life that grows well will not break apart and is already fixed before it breaks again.
About the poet: Jonathan Chibuike Ukah is a Pushcart-nominated poet living in the United Kingdom. His poems have been featured in Unleash Lit, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Atticus Review, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets and elsewhere. He won the third Prize in the Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest in 2024 and the Alexander Pope Poetry Award in 2023. His second collection, I Blame My Ancestors, published by Kingsman Quarterly in July 2024 was a Second runner-up at the Black Diaspora Poetry Slam in 2024. He was the Editor’s Choice Prize Winner of Unleash Lit in 2024. He was shortlisted for the Minds Shine Bright Poetry Prize 2024 and was the Second Poetry Prize Winner at the Streetlights Poetry Prize in 2024.