Desires and Scaffolds

By Abbia Udofia

Abbia Udofia is a lawyer and resides in Abuja, Nigeria. He holds degrees and certificates in law, criminology and criminal justice, forensic psychology and criminal investigation from the University of Calabar, University of Leicester and the University of Liverpool. He also contributes articles, essays and poems to newspapers and magazines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491880845

Abbia Udofia

Abbia Udofia has a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Calabar, Nigeria, and is enrolled as a solicitor and advocate in the Nigerian Bar since 1989. He has a Masters of Law degree from the University of Liverpool and a Post Graduate Certificate in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Leicester. He is completing a Master of Science Degree in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Justice from the University of Liverpool. He also writes articles and essays for newspapers and online journals. His first collection of poems Desires & Scaffolds (2013, 2015) was published by AuthorHouse.

Book preview

© 2013, 2015 by Abbia Udofia. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/22/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8083-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9929-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8084-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Desires

Book of Verses

Pageants

The Garden

Forgotten

Waitress

Pomegranates

Finding the Tune

The Encounter

Tenderness

Lyric Song

A Kiss

Intimacy

Desire

Flutist

Shepherdess

Arpeggio

Cherish

The Face

Walking the Beach

Sleepless

When Love Arrests and Indicts

Knowing Love

How Sweetly Your Smiles Tease

Absence

Closed

Cross Examination

Echoes

Dialogue of Hearts

Fragile

Lost Love

Love

Love Forbidden

Night Call

Night Kiss

The Trial

The Tapster

The Promise

The Perfume

The Girl

Divan

Night Cry

Portions

The Promise

Waiting

Before Dawn

Eden’s Light

Close to the Window

Maydew

The Affair

She Called

Jewel

Woman

Felony

Scaffolds

The Destitute

Crossroads

The Mad One

The Last Train

Lullaby Unsung

The Loser

Wolf City

When Rainmakers Turn Locusts

Aircrash

The Caged Bird

The Scaffold

Love

Recall

Scarecrows

Trance

Lost Love

After the Hanging

Bitterness

Burying an Albino

Canoe Man

Curfews and Cockroaches

Dewdrops: Identification Parade

Endangered

Firewalker

Flame

Diamonds

House of the Sun

Hunger

I Killed Him

Listening

Locusts and Rainmakers

The Script

Witches

Unknown

Undertakers

The Knife

The Discounted

Dream

The Coyote

The Clown and the Bier

Broken Beads

The Barred Gate

Suzanne

Atonement

Rape

Three Candles

Night for Dying

Widow

Birdsongs on the Death of Two by Fire

Sadness

Before the Storm

The Final Solution

Weeping Trees

Sleepwalking

Ashes of Evil

The Fence

Suicide Eyes

Vigil

Intersections

Portraits

Fresh Air

Cascades

The Shelf

Toadstools

Dead Love

Bird of Dawn

Masks

Concrete

Outsider

Vista

Bird Watcher

Farm Girl

India

Adaora

After Years …

Beautiful

As Always

Deserted

Faded Laughter: A Punctuation

Faith

G

Graffiti on the Walls of a Deserted Nunnery

This Earth

The Plastic Surgeon

Sun

Serpent

Painting a Rose

Portrait

Postcard

Roses

Oasis

Sitting by the Riverside among Water Weeds

We Love

Night Maid

Rain

She Loved

Laureate

Desertion

Pray

Coffins

Poverty

The World Is a Bat

Poetess

Notes

For Margaret

Soft and mild as dove, the smooth temperate cove;

tireless bee bearing sweetness, and tenderness;

Unending honey drop for this prodigal fop

Desires

sweet and sour nectar

from low and elongated petals…

Book of Verses

She is sleeping in my arms. Just how I dreamt it,

In the garden of stars and moon and flowers.

In my hand, a book of verses; in her hand, roses.

I am on the sea, the waves washing off my drowsiness.

I am on her sea, she washes off my blankness.

We are on the sea catching our dreams, our breaths.

She is sleeping in my arms, queen of my dreams.

Just the way I am dreaming it, just the way she wrote it.

Pageants

The girl who declined loving regardless

of the beholder’s striking pageantry,

with long verses and songs blazing,

the face of heavens;

she listened with face like an angel, a courier

for the anointed.

She smiled and spoke a beautiful nothing,

a salient incredulity,

and with her lovely coat, she brushed off

poems of her pageantry.

The Garden

We are as simple as the common

dust on the roadside flower.

In the old garden where love runs,

Even the king’s horses turn to salt.

Pluck me a rose, darling,

From the fresh garden, sweet as rose.

Leave strangers at the door knocking.

Gather silvery thoughts and words

Of the moon; serve me your rose

Away from this night of many eyes.

Forgotten

I am laughing at myself, talking to myself,

Mocking half-hearted kisses with the faded shadow.

He, the psychotherapist who broke my writer’s block

And fixed puzzles of my missing personality.

He was the long cold hour without friends

And that cold season without love.

He is laughing and talking with himself

About love so sweet yet forgotten,

His faded image hanging at the city gate.

Waitress

I am making a picture