SPLENDOROUS ACHE

If Roses grow in heaven,

Lord please select a bunch for me,

Place them in my grandma arms

and tell her they’re from me.
She saddled my cradle,

As thick residues of her love,

Enclose me like parentheses,

I held unto her protection.
Then swung past principles,

Of her enforced moral fiber,

Which were etched as morning dews,

Washing away bad-habits.
Through kaleidoscopic toy,

Younger me burnt for more,

As she stood to be a guiding light,

Into escaping rampage.
Please tell her I miss her,

and when she turns to smile,

place a kiss upon her cheek

and hold unto her for awhile.
Because remembering her is easy,

I do it every day but there’s an ache,

There’s an ache within my heart

That will never go away.

The Poet, Joshua Omeke tells the story of his grandmother’s impact towards his development and subtly denotes the processes as a narrative poetry.
Joshua Omeke has been nominated for the Forward Prize under the Best Performed Single Poem Category 2024. And his next collection of poetry “The Hymns of a Deepman” is to be released in the fall of this year by Austin Macauley in UK.