In case you were wondering, Oron is not the name of a constellation even though it sounds like one.  Oron is a Nigerian border town where Chibuzor Okoroafor lives, attends the Nigerian maritime academy and writes poetry. Oron is “the land of aquatic splendor…a lovely estuary town, connecting the Atlantic… a wonderful place to be,” says Chibuzor in a Facebook message.  Chibuzor has a growing collection of poems he likes to share with his friends on Facebook. That’s how I first encountered his work. He describes his poems as  “very simple and approachable, deeply sentimental and sometimes witty.” My little addition is that Chibuzor’s poems are marked by an intensity of imagery that somehow does not get in the way of understanding the meaning of the poems and enjoying their wittiness and sentimentality. Brittle Paper is delighted to feature “Renditions of Flight II.”

 

Renditions of Flight II

by Chibuzor Okoroafor

Earth hangs on tides,
rarely waits as time changes.
Trendsetting outpaced trends.
In time, brogues and robes,
dialyzed rogues
as worms to a dead ego.

Time is
us – impatient, grown tots,
witty, passionate arch-androids.
Soulful-hum of transparent-art
hung over in-flight; unshelled
mollusc shuffling in space
to the rhythm of love
gyrating echoes of a triumphant past.
Reverential particles of residual dust
spiralling– a text
(double-) marking time.