> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Three Poems by Uche Nduka - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/three-poems-by-uche-nduka/ - Published: 2014-09-17T18:02:16.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T16:44:01.000Z - Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected three poems by Uche Nduka for his series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers. - Author: Joe Pan - Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1) *Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected three poems by Uche Nduka for his* [*series*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/) *that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.* \* \* \* ![Nebraska (BB14) (1918) (via National Archives and Records Administration)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/01/dazzleship11.jpg) USS Nebraska (BB14) (1918) (image via National Archives and Records Administration) ## Up to the High Dive up to the high dive the showdown a cannonball in hot pursuit blue veins alfalfa ditch cut to amyl nitrate lemurs abscond trigger warning stress test & yet here i am i have never been overawed by aimlessness without finishing what’s in my glass without renouncing bipedal stimulus proactive crepuscular without once breaking a stride i am amenable to colonnades that serve me bam bam drop the phone espionage is a fucking joke that’s enough foxtrot roll around the crocus threw away the icebox & snoozed through love conforming to acrylic toboggan a hole where a church once blared i hate saying that silence counts but it does the lasso the fire of the white rose the pressure of motivation it happens when a dialogue happens is desire the same thing as a caress? twisting around what the axis posits if this is repurposing why are we running? legend paints our faces two karmas flowing into each other what part of love is just one’s belief in it? tanks? prison camps? opera is not only for fat men candies? starship? money for something risen to a delirious plum outside the subway this is not what it’s really like to stand stage right because if worse comes to worse we’ll rip it up stand up & be echoed says the sauna i lost my gloves in the Rhine ejector & ululant that something is natural doesn’t necessarily mean it is good or right stories of the Lord & tourmaline the woman is the Lord heaven climbs into a waiting cab ## Art Nouveau i will keep throwing a wrecking ball the mind is a funky street light cans of spray paint searching for the filth behind their truth without a pause to steamroll over cuttings strippings frantic phonebooking further away from thoughts hanging on sledgehammers gold seam gunk glop there’s a balsamic climax going on meeting the outsider’s outsider fuck off nervous breakdown! walking towards Art Nouveau pictures she is going to burn she is going to dance on top of army tanks you made the better move i was too uptight for love pitched it at a surfer barreled down to your purity an abused script let go sick of inside jokes stage fright moon the tip of her tail which brownies will my website support? plumbing pipe cart truck pan she was resting he was in the wrong place rooms without views unscan unsolid wood unPlexiglas he believed the music on her wall living in the West but not of it what is silvery braid? it is obscene not to understand the opposite of genocide it is hard to grasp how much grief is still in me for the death of that poet shot at Opi Junction in 1967 read your story from mine if you wish somewhere within a tight spot double take of atemporal shadow every part of you is the center of the world ## Bets Off Imprints or not, blue jays are laurels. Some archives meant for a chasm. The detour is helpless. It seeks delusions. To break bread with bread in springtime’s ragtime. Statistics flow by. Across the city, war kissed their philosophies, gave them a verse to sing. With chords of pleasure through the arterial library. You don’t have to figure it all out before you begin. Albany’s tweed bush & meanness of odd matchup. Make & break it & see the maestro fall for a stripper. The permutations of post-9/11 anesthetic. Bets off. Completely badass. Upscale groceries about to be carved up. A fair shake in public opinion polls. The too-muchness is the clincher. Does your slow pace stand for something? Aficionados’ recess. Clasps the collar of the littlest lie. Facts do not always help us know what’s true. Driving one another mad is what makes us perfect. Punk-drunk, blackout drunk. To roll with the gag. Why let analysis invade your dreams? Over & against the tranced, i’m not playing by the number. Growl. Suction. Broth. Over & against meddling & swooning. Distancer. Detangler. Wherever we arrive provokes departure. \* \* \* *Uche Nduka is a Nigerian-American poet, essayist, and collagist. He is the author of nine volumes of poems of which the latest is titled* Nine East *(SPM Publications, London, 2013). He presently lives in New York City and teaches at Pratt Institute and CUNY.*