Blank Verse by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah
Though I have not figured it out, I seem to have come to the beginning of something I know I didn’t understand, but I don’t know what it is I have to do; it’s as though it doesn't matter anymore when everything's coming back to me after it vanished from my mind. I seize the time to destroy the universe as I know it from the dream I have had; lurking in the shadows to give me grief, only to reappear when I turn my back. Some say it's in the nature of things to come back to the same place, after they buried my destiny under a stone to suppress the resurrection gene. I decided I must pluck daisies for death, for those buried within the vault of time, or within my heart with a heavy stone, to prevent thieves from stealing them away and claiming that moths ate their remnants, like I didn't make up my mind in time to cry before I remembered what fate couldn't fathom. Though my power forecasts rising from the dead, it can't determine who'll roll away the stone. I wield a knife to slice the grave apart and dig the tomb between time and eternity, but if I don’t roll away the heavy stone, even a miracle may have to wait for a while. In the shadow of the sadness of my mind, I bother myself with things I don’t know, and not with what I can deal with, or what my destiny cannot influence. I decided to revisit the beginning of my life, only to see the stone roll itself away and an angel seated on its rounded top disgracing those who wouldn’t roll the stone for me.
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah lives in London with his family. His poems have been featured and will soon be featured in Strange Horizons, The Fairy Tale Magazine, Atticus Review, The Pierian, Ariel Chart International Press, Boomer Literary Magazine, etc. He is a winner of the Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest 2022 and the Alexander Pope Poetry Award 2023.
