Echezonachukwu Nduka
Featured Image: Chrysanthemum clouds © A. Anupama 2017
What I’ve not told you is that the man
in black is the newest funeral home in town.
He was christened only yesterday before his sons
shot themselves after seeing a movie about ghosts
playing trombones. I am here again to say farewell
in dialects spoken by exchanging chrysanthemums and
listening to Liszt’s liebestraum. We are here, heads bowed,
vowing to lock our guns when ghosts start singing on TV.
Born and raised in Nigeria, Echezonachukwu Nduka is a poet, pianist, and writer who was educated at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and Kingston University, London, England. Recipient of the 2016 Korea-Nigeria Poetry Prize, his literary works have been published or are forthcoming in Expound, The Bombay Review, Ake Review, The Kalahari Review, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, African Writer, Saraba, Jalada, Afridiaspora, The New Black Magazine, A Thousand Voice Rising: An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry, Black Communion: Poems of 100 New African Poets, and elsewhere. He has performed as a stage poet at Kingston University London, Anambra Book & Creativity Festival, Ake Arts & Book Festival, and Goethe Institut Lagos (Nigeria). He writes from New Jersey.