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A PORTRAIT OF PORT-HARCOURT(a poem by Nket Godwin)

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port Harcourt
when i first stood on your forehead
you became the guise of voices
in neighbouring hut at night
not the assonance of laughter
that placated my nerve

the sight of your plastered mug
brings back my grandmother's
blistered time-crumpled outward
you waver along in ragamuffin
under cosmic bridge
limping after every shoe
cloth dress and bags
for a handshake of alms

what happened to your health?
why does your perfume nauseate me
and your breath pierces my nose
like a voyage in a forest of carcass?
you are a rotten trunk
tasselled with a glowing bark!

your night is a moment in hell
and your morning once upon egypt
air-route for flying jet of delinquency
your water produces leech
blood usurpers on fish scale
not fortress against baits

where is the rainbow i often found
in the sky of returning lips
oh port harcourt whose pots are courts
where meat arbirates fingers


NKET GODWIN is a poet, critic and essayist. His works appeared or are forthcoming in both print and online magazines and anthologies. He writes from Rivers State.

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