At the World’s Edge (After Kofi Awoonor)
I am here, where land forgets itself.
Before my gaze is a river.
I can’t move forward,
After my dreams,
Or backward to my fears.
I dip my toes into the river—
With questions heavier than water:
To walk on the river, or
To walk aback
The shore of my first breath?
I am at the edge of the world,
A beautiful dream before my heart’s eyes,
A river sparkling to the skies—
The will to go hitherto,
And the trepidation to turn back.
But over the other side of the river,
There are voices like untamed flutes
Of them who have broken the river.
But now the question lies here:
How did they break the river?
Here at the edge of the world,
I sit wondering: does the river dreams of me
As I dream of it.
A Poem after a rejection letter
(20/02/2026)
And now, I mourn my failure,
But not to never try again.
No, I will try again
In an introspection,
Moving backwards
And forward,
Checking my balance
And the ground on which I stand,
To aim at this vision,
If the earth beneath it will hold my weight,
To find that place
Where the air is finally worth the climb
A spot where the shadows
Don’t have to be a prison for anyone else,
And my own uneven footsteps
Become a signal for those who are lost.
Here, I will mourn my failures,
Not to surrender,
No,
But to step again
Lighter, slower, beneath the same sky.
What I held too long (After reading Matthew 17:19-20)
Lord, I am letting this little bird fly away.
I have held it for too long,
for its freedom and mine.
These sweaty hands are tired,
same as the little room down there,
my heart that has conceived it,
holding something so little as it—
this little seed of faith
that I have held for a long time now.
At the Saviour’s command: If your faith be as little as a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Be thou removed”, and go hereto.
Here, in what makes me belonging,
in country, I have built and unbuilt this faith,
planting it in a fertile land,
even without the presence of rain.
But that which my heart bleeds out—
its ache daily—this bird, this seed,
this dream of building a beautiful becoming—
daily falls on the mountainous earth,
scourging, scourging, scourging
by what is before it and before me.
Lord, in your words,
I find my sky.
John Chinaka Onyeche is a Nigerian writer based in Port Harcourt and a historian from Etche in Rivers State. While he is dedicated to ensuring that the full scope of history is accurately represented, John now writes about family, broken home, the effect on its victims, and survival. His writing can be found in various journals, including York Literary Review, McNeese Review, Pier Review, Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival Anthology, Tilted House Journal, The Shallow Tales Review, Akewi Magazine, and Brittle Paper, etc. He is a Best of Net/Pushcart nominee, respectively. You can connect with him on X/Twitter @Apostlejohnchin
Cover photo credit: Ale Conchillos