Torque

By Eyitemi Egwuenu

CAVALCADE OF POEMS AND ESSAYS

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jan 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504326841

Eyitemi Egwuenu

EYITEMI EGWUENU is the author of The Brimming Chalice, a collection of poetry. He trained as a Medical Doctor, has a PhD in cardiovascular neuroscience, and is a prolific writer. He is currently working on a second novel.

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Copyright © 2015 Eyitemi Egwuenu.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Balboa Press

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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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.

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.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2683-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2684-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015900931

Balboa Press rev. date: 01/27/2015

Contents

Introduction

Poems

May I Not Have Lived In Vain

I Walk With The Angels

The Look

My Bride Is Not Of This Place

At Twilight

Clasp The Roaming Wind

A Dream Sequence

Evening

Torpid Tunes Of Midnight

Silver Sphere

Dewdrops In My Dreams

The Whispering Sea

Fireplace

The Eloquence Of Silence

Hush

Stardust I

Stardust II

To A Fair Moon

Whispers

To A Candle Flame

Plea To The Rain

Ode To A Blunt Pen

Reflections By A River

Star Of Bethlehem

Another Tomorrow

Lord, You Know

Nature’s Song

The Sweet Adieu

Laughter

Nighttime In My Thoughts

Pride

Tapestry Of Roses

Dawn

Mother I

Pardon Me

Mother II

Love That Would Not Let Me Be

Lost! O Lost!

Secret Of The Cauldron [Age Of Innocence]

Secret Of The Cauldron [Down The Dark River]

Catacomb

Tetelestai

Love, It Was

Tell Me You Love Me

Nightingale In The Thicket

A Ring Of Grey Stones

Sons Of The Northwind

To A Pale Moon

Eclipse

A Bird’s Uncertain Flight

Away From Home

The Bird

The Wooden Flute

Waiting For You

Reflections Beside A River

Winds Against My Soul [Ikaladerhan’s Last Song]

Sweet Moonlit Sky [Queen Iden’s Last Song]

Threshold Of Twilight

Oh Misery

Shattered Dreams

When You are Gone

The Passionate Pilgrim

In The Shelter Of His Arms

Song In The Graveyard

Work

Dance Of The Eagles

The Seed

Shadows Across My Doorway

Bending Before The Wind

Atlantis

Nighttime

To The Harmattan Wind

Now And Forever

Tender Is The Night

Footprints

The Sea

Silence

The Call I

The Call II

The Call III

The Call IV

The Call V

The Call VI

The Call VII

The Call VIII

The Call IX

The Call X

Night In The City

The Passage

Serenade: A New Moon

Awakening

Reawkening

The Promise

Chrysalis

Twilight

Essays

A Thousand Splendid Things

The Bandwagon Effect

Confessions Of Lucifer – A Diary

Intellectual Complacency – The Zeigeist

Living In The Present

In Our Stars Or In Ourselves

I Am Not A Christian

Cacophony – An Admirable Fiction

Ancient Of Days

A Christian Play In Three Acts

A Parade Of Illusions

Glossary

For Abieyuwa Irobun Ruby Ogiehor:

mother and friend

Introduction

A ll men are philosophers – whether they know it or not. It is inescapable. It is part of being human. While we live, we breathe, and while we breathe, we see the world through one or more lenses – lenses fashioned by our own experiences or the experiences of others. Shaped by the earliest perceptions of childhood, and onwards, the impressions we receive provide the coordinates by which we navigate this vast and ancient sea we call life. We may never pause in our ever-increasing hurry through the demands of daily life to deconstruct our thoughts, or stack them up in neat premises, axioms and categories. We may never lay out in any rigorous academic fashion the principles by which we chart our course through our mortal existence, but always, without fail, we instinctively make these calculations and compute the variables and the constants to plot our orbit. From childhood, as we interact with the world, we evolve a system of core beliefs; we may not consciously be aware of it, but it is there. Invariably, our core beliefs set the pivot for the principles we choose to embrace, and it is around this fulcrum, this governing centre, that our opinions and actions rotate. It is around this fulcrum that our torque of life and living is established. Our views on everything – religion, morality, politics etc, are determined by our torque. In time, the force of our opinions and actions may grow or decline as they are tried and tested in the theatre of living. Some opinions may appear polarized towards either ends of a spectrum and others may be more nuanced, but nobody is without one, even if they do not voice it or are unable to articulate it. It is pertinent to mention that a polarized view is not necessarily wrong; every viewpoint should be considered in the context of the argument, and the appropriate gauge of the needle on the dial determined through balanced and objective scrutiny. But such calibration is not always easy – new facts emerge to challenge deeply entrenched positions – new insights arise from a re-evaluation of the evidence or lack thereof. In the end, we fashion some semblance of order from the chaos of facts and opinions, – we settle to a rhythm to which we are in harmony with. We find our Torque.

I reject the proposition of a mindless faith.

All I call for is a reasonable faith.

True Faith is not blind belief.

True Faith is not burying your head in the sand because you do not want to acknowledge the facts, or, half-hoping or half-wishing that by some cryptic mechanism, your ignorance would somehow give birth to the truth.

True faith is not a cultivated façade of emotions propped up by superstitious observances, histrionics, and the virtue of the Pharisees.

True Faith is not the mind rejecting a premise while the heart accepts it.

There can be a reason for faith.

We know in part, – true.

But, we can know enough to arrive at a reasonable faith.

- Eyitemi Egwuenu

Poems

"Is all that we see or seem

but a dream within a dream?"

- Edgar Allan Poe

(A Dream within a Dream)

May I Not Have Lived In Vain

When these lids close in the sleep of the blessed,

when this spark within, flies back to the Light from which it came,

when limbs return to dust,

when thoughts become one with the Wind;

when this earthly robe is shed,

when immortality calls…

when The North trembles with the songs of The Ten Thousand,

and The Throne blazes with The Host of the Seraphim.

When Michael thunders with joy,

when Gabriel nods with pride, at the homecoming of the Scribe,

May the spark have set the world on fire,

May the limbs have fulfilled their destiny,

May the thoughts have swayed the race of men;

May I not have lived in vain…

May I not have lived in vain.

I Walk With The Angels

I hear the breath of Angels;

melody like sea-surf threading its foam

between grains of sand.

A flash of glory –

transparent wings of light bear me up…

I see Eden descend,

from the Mounts of the North…

I walk with the Angels.

The Look

There she stands,

Queen of my dreams –

her eyes –

twin lighthouses for

my storm-tossed soul…

Her tresses flirt

with the wayward wind –

coaxed air makes a lair in her hair…

I will watch the moon leave its hiding,

I will watch as nighttime falls,

I will watch her heart and read therein,

the beauty of it all…

Here, I stand,

washed by her eyes’ pool.

Here, I bow – captured – a slave;

not conquered by a sword – but a look.

My Bride Is Not Of This Place

My bride is not of this place,

she is coming to me from

Outer Space;

we would shame Mercury’s fire

with our love,

and gallop across Venus from dawn till dusk.

The Earth will not hold us firmly to it,

the plains of Mars must

feel our feet,

‘Til, Orion and Andromeda gaze in starry wonder,

and marvel at such a love as ours.

We will soar, aloft, – borne on the Sun’s light…

and relish,

all of Jupiter’s pride.

On the rings of Saturn we will mount our nest,

and drift awhile to a blissful rest.

Uranus shall rejoice at our approach,

and beg of us to make him our home.

But love has no abode,

save in the hearts of men.

No cosmic sphere can be its den.

For aeons on end, our love shall bloom,

and swell the fortunes

of a thousand moons.

We will be the envy of stars and comets,

Neptune shall bow,

and call us blessed.

I will drown myself in this celestial praise,

and kiss her feet

at Pluto’s gate.

O, my bride is not of this place.

She is coming to me from Outer Space.

*Pluto was still a planet when this poem was written.

At Twilight

At twilight…

I, slip through the wormhole –

across the rainbow –

this visible, coloured half-torus.

I, walk the two-manifold-disc;

shapeshifter, shifting from

substance to non-matter –

beyond the wormhole,

beyond the horizon’s

rim-thin reels of crimson,

as the Sun, with a jealous eye

kills the ageing night.

I, Shapeshifter, shifting this

twisted tale of twilight –

this virgin vortex,

beyond blue rocks that kiss in doom,

beyond winged-ram-fleece,

beyond climes, where music thrills

from strings stretched from the Sun –

I, hear the music –

melodies of the Shining City,

weaned on the winding wish of the whirlwind.

Clasp The Roaming Wind

Clasp the roaming wind, bend

its sinews to the east; it is not

its destiny to

sip the sop of Sisyphus…

Clasp the wind –

tease its veins… its flow,

towards the hearth where

the embers fail.

Ferry this cumulus;

wind-hinged vats of black milk –

storm cloud-blobs, which beat

their drip-drip-drip;

drops