Poetry from Emmanuel Umeji

Emmanuel Umeji

BAGGY GENERATION

I need no canoe to sail back into

The past, the day my grandfather

Read his adage into every growing ear

Only a puzzle in my brain, & this all

Would re-appear in fresh flesh

We grew up with this adage becoming

The owner of our heart-

The okra herb never duels for height

With its cocky.

As my mother’s tongue has also attested,

My mother’s mother would sew her a cloth

Of pair-able size to her petite nature-

Cutting her cloth in accord with her cloth.

Err NO for this baggy generation

A man’s shoe size is a thousand and two times

Grey-haired than his leg

Every being opine to what isn’t yet

Visible in their weak muscles

A child wants to talk before birth

And run before he crawls

A boy with two teeth is wearing the

Words of fatherhood in his mouth

The beards like scattered mop strands

Beneath the bottom of a child’s mouth

Has been robbed of the esteem of his father.

The baggy generation of

Fat clothing in big thin bodies

makes them another phrase

For a swallowed pill.

Baggy heads yet thin of sense

Everything is baggy! eyes, mind, mouth & motive

On crossed legs, this generation wants

To reach the peak of an alp.

8 thoughts on “Poetry from Emmanuel Umeji

  1. ‘A boy with two teeth is wearing the
    Words of fatherhood in his mouth’

    fantastic imagery like this makes me feel young again, then old, then . . .
    a circle forms as i peer from a mountaintop down into a smokey
    valley filled with former selves . . .

  2. The okra herb is an important image to lots of peoples around the world. Good allusion to connect with them.

    The boy with two teeth and the words of fatherhood is great character. I think a lot of the people in this poem could be characters in flash fiction – even for other writers who quote and link to it! 🙂

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